The Development and Testing of a Time-Limited Mentoring Model for Experienced School Leaders

Source: Mentoring & Tutoring: Partnership in Learning, Volume 17, Issue 3 August 2009, pages 233 - 249.

In Australia, mentoring has been incorporated into the induction process for principals, aspirant leaders and beginning teachers.

However, internationally three significant impediments to mentoring success have been identified in the literature: insufficient time; mentors' lack of professional expertise; and personality mismatches. To address these issues, a skills training program was developed in Victoria. This program utilized the principles of adult attachment theory and time-limited therapy. The model, consisting of six developmentally focused mentoring meetings, was introduced to principals across grade levels.

A mixed methods analysis was carried out post-training. The results indicated significant improvement in the skills set and confidence levels of mentors (i.e. experienced school principals). An unexpected benefit was an improvement in the health and wellbeing of some mentors and protgs (i.e. aspiring assistant principals and a few teacher-leaders).

In addition to the results that emerged from qualitative analysis, directions for future research are discussed.