Why a community dedicated to mentoring?
Because we know that good mentoring is a decisive factor in establishing strong teachers at the beginning of their careers and it nurtures resilient teachers throughout their careers.
Mentoring is a key activity across education. It happens formally:
- between associate teachers and student or establishing teachers,
- between Specialist Classroom Teachers and their colleagues,
- between faculty heads, senior teachers and their staff,
- and in Kāhui Ako clusters.
Mentoring is also happening informally amongst colleagues.
Pātaka supports all of these relationships. As a storehouse community, Pātaka is a place where teachers will find and share the resources and support they need.
Mentors have told us there are three things they need to do this vital job well; time, resources and community support. Pātaka has been designed to connect with all three of these needs.
Time is a precious commodity for teachers. Whilst we can’t magic-up 25 hour days, Pātaka saves mentors’ time by gathering focused resources.
Mentors can find what they need without the waffle:
- There are certain challenges we know teachers are likely to face. Mentors can find themselves repeatedly having the same conversations. Pātaka provides mentors with resources that they can share with their mentees to pre-empt these conversations – providing knowledge and strategies for the mentee, so that mentoring can go deeper, faster.
- Quality mentoring does not happen by accident. Pātaka provides resources that support the mentoring process – growing specific mentoring skills and knowledge that we know work.
Pātaka creates community, where mentors can connect and share their work. This includes sharing resources and knowledge online, working together to establish communities that nurture mentoring and making connections with local colleagues.
We are often asked about supporting mentees with developing te reo. In response we have created a full set of freely available resources focused on te reo that teachers use everyday in their classrooms. The 52 Weeks resources include waiata and karakia commonly used in school, language for pepehā and pōwhiri, instructions, encouragement and subject specific reo. 52 Weeks continues to be used by establishing and experienced teachers alike to learn and enrich their reo.