In this paper I draw on empirical work I have
been involved in since 2016, involving over
1200 teacher mentors, to discuss a key issue
that has arisen – the professional knowledge
required to mentor effectively. This work
includes the development of a curriculum for
training school-based mentors of trainee and
newly qualified teachers, Enhance your
Mentoring Skills, delivered regionally across
South Yorkshire (Pountney and Grasmeder,
2018), as well as nationally for mentors of
mid-career teachers on the Chartered Teacher
programme of the Chartered College of
Teaching. I begin by discussing briefly what is
known about teachers’ mentoring practices,
and understandings of what constitutes
professional knowledge. Next, I discuss the
nature of mentor teachers’ learning for
practice, and the difficulties inherent in
articulating this to themselves, and to others.
I illustrate this with examples, to show how
the problem can be differentiated in two
dimensions of meaning: the first is closeness
to context (semantic gravity) and the second
is the degree of conceptual complexity
(semantic density). Finally, I discuss the need
for a specialised language for mentoring and
how this can promote the professional status
of mentors, as well as building knowledge
about, and for, effective mentoring practice
