The role of the mentor in an increasingly school-led English initial teacher education policy context

Against an international policy backdrop that favours school-led initial teacher education, this paper presents the results of a study seeking to explore the role of the teacher mentor in the English context. Using an online survey (n = 64) and semi-structured interviews (n = 7), the study examined how mentors conceptualised their roles and related skills, and if perceptions varied depending on whether they supported mentees on school-led or university-led routes, and, or, other contextual variables. In light of preliminary findings from the survey, suggesting that views could be affected by the particular workplace in which mentors were located, the second (interview) phase of the research was theoretically framed by a situational and sociocultural theory of mentoring. Whilst overall the findings revealed that perceptions and reported practices continued to be influenced by structural factors identified in existent studies, they also suggested the emergence and impact of new cultural and situational dynamics, at school level. The authors consider the reasons for situational variations in these dynamics and the implications for future mentor development.