Earlier this month, 16 of Gowrie’s mentors came together at The Harbour for a day of peer reflection.
The Mentoring for Provisionally Registered Teachers (PRT) Program, delivered by Gowrie on behalf of the Victorian Department of Education, partners an experienced early childhood mentor with early career teachers looking to gain their full teacher registration through the Victorian Institute of Teaching (VIT).
Since 2019, Gowrie mentors have provided mentorship to close to one thousand PRTs. One of the strengths of the program is that the mentors as well as their mentees are based right across Victoria. It means mentors have a strong understanding of the new teacher’s local context and the support that might be available to them locally. However, one of the challenges from this is that the mentors don’t often see each other or have the opportunity to share and connect with other colleagues at Gowrie. Bringing together our mentors in Melbourne for peer reflection is one way by which we’re strengthening collaboration and looking at ways to strengthen the program.
Adult Learning Program Manager Sue highlights the importance of group peer reflection with mentors to share with one another their processes, successes and challenges. “It’s an opportunity for rich learning and to see what new teachers across Victoria are identifying as their support needs and focus areas for their Inquiry projects. It’s incredibly useful for mentors who work across the state to be able to come together to share the strategies they feel have worked, ideas for further improvements and to do this in person with their peers. There’s such a lot that we can learn from one another,” says Sue. “Whilst every mentoring engagement is different, it’s incredibly important to take time out to reflect together and to be able to both offer and seek support from those doing similar work.” Juliane, one of the mentors who attended, found the peer reflection day to be valuable, stating “the collaboration day was a uniting of peers, a coming together to share ideas, troubleshooting, and identifying areas that needed more understanding.”
Executive Manager Glyn Williams explained “we have a large and growing team of professionals delivering learning programs for adults across Victoria including coaches, mentors, trainers, learning designers and program managers. Even though the team is spread across Victoria and don’t see each other often, according to Gowrie’s staff survey, this is one of the most engaged teams we have,” he said. “But it’s important that we invest the time in coming together regularly such as at Gowrie’s recent staff conference and reflection days like these. As much of the work is supporting others to reflect on practice and how they’re embedding their own learning, it’s incredibly important that we make time to do this ourselves with our peers.”
Learn more about how our mentors support provisionally registered teachers to achieve full teacher registration here.
