… Engaging Mentors and Enhancing Leadership

Two components: 2014 and 2015Two focuses:

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander teachers new to teaching …. a mentoring focus

Future educational leaders who are Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders… a leadership development focus

# OURMOBTEACHConference , 30 September 2015

What the project did…..Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander teachers new to teaching …. …..a mentoring focus..

17 in-school pairs of mentees and mentors…..most states; government and Catholic schools

Principals/line managers as ‘mentors’ as opposed to ‘supervisors’…active support…. jointly identifying support needs…. creating learning

and development opportunities… build mentors’ cultural intelligence….March-October, 2014: face-to-face, online and webinarsPossibly a ‘first’ of its kind

Successes… 100% strongly agreed or agreed that ‘it was a very helpful/useful partnership’

100% strongly agreed or agreed that they ‘felt and equal partner’

88% of mentors felt that mentees had challenged their (ie the mentor’s) thinking

100% strongly agreed or agreed that they ‘recommend the mentee-mentor partnership to

future graduate teachers’;

43% of mentee respondents strongly agreed that ‘the mentor gave me opportunities along

the way’

100% strongly agreed or agreed that they ‘felt and equal partner’

Challenges...Keeping ‘mentor/mentee’ separate from line manager relationshipsSharing the simplicity of the model!Getting it on schools’ and principals’ radars….. Such a model doesn’t appear to be in place

What the project did…..Future educational leaders who are Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders…….. a leadership development focus …

23 current and future leaders: 12 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander men and women

Primary, secondary, K-12; govt./Cath. schools; seven states/territories

Leadership development workshop, Part 1 workplace project workshop, Part 2

Based on PAI’s L5 FrameworkLeadership learning and cross-cultural learning

Successes…

… The mixture of Aboriginal, Torres Strait Islander and non-indigenous people encouraged a much deeper and more meaningful discussion …. A great model for inclusive partnerships in education …

… not only the networking opportunities but also hearing stories from a cross-section of people has helped me understand different perspectives about Indigenous education …

… we’ve been able to share, to bring a lot of expertise together and when we think about bringing together Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people, what we’re saying is that if we can do it , then other people can do it … it will empower other people to take on leadership roles…..

Challenges...

Sharing the simplicity of the model! Encouraging systems and schools to continue such a model.. very low-cost Getting it on schools’ and principals’ radars….. Separating ‘system’ approaches from broader professional learning….developing

‘professionals’ as opposed to developing ‘employees’

What?So what?

What next?

#OurMobTeach