Developing a Mentoring Plan in School

Maricris Subiate

School leaders may conduct a mentoring program starting with a small group such as a pair of mentor-mentees. As the school community understands that mentoring programs work, school leaders will feel empowered to implement a mentoring program within the school to create a successful mentoring system. In general, a mentoring plan outlines the mechanism by which mentors should be appointed and how the plan will be executed, which provides checklists to be followed by mentors to ensure they cover all new faculty needs to learn.

Another approach is to form a mentoring committee to develop a mentoring program. School leaders may be inviting interested teachers and workers to take part in a mentoring group. The mentoring committee will elect a chair; set targets and expectations; evaluate schools' basic requirements, and address relevant issues to establish procedures for implementation of the program.

A good way is to send the draft of the mentoring plan to all faculty members and ask for feedback, particularly from the new faculty who knows what new faculty members need. School leaders may look at mentoring programs created by other schools and change an effective program to suit their needs in the school. A mentoring committee is a support team approach to mentoring that has many benefits for mentor-mentee including reducing the stress level of mentor teachers, decreasing the mentor's commitment time by sharing responsibilities within the team, and helping mentor-mentee mediate their problems. Many experienced teachers have good intentions to do a successful mentoring job but fear that the school may have inadequate help. Mentor teachers will have more faith by creating a mentoring committee and establishing a mentoring program and will know that resources will be available along with appropriate support to help beginning teachers. Such partnerships between mentor and mentee can allow both mentors and mentees to improve their abilities in the field. This is a strong way for school leaders to help teachers learn professionally.

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The author is Teacher III at Carabaoan-Caocaoayan Elementary School