The Mentorship program is a three-year opportunity for teachers who are new to education, new to our district or new to an educator role. Mentees apply to be assigned a mentor to collaborate around a professional learning goal.
Funding is provided to support Mentorship as follows:
- Year One Mentees and their Mentor will have access to one of the following choices:
- 2 half day TOC release days for both the mentee and mentor.
- 1 half day TOC release day for both the mentee and mentor + $200 for meal meeting(s)/professional resources related to the mentorship goal.
- $500 towards meal meeting(s)/professional resources related to mentorship goal.
- Year Two and Three Mentees and their Mentor have access to $500 towards meal meeting(s)/professional resources related to mentorship goal.
“Mentorship is a collaborative learning relationship and reflective process that is established together by a mentor-coach and a mentee. This co-created partnership, of ongoing support and challenge, evolves over time through structured conversations to facilitate engagement, capacity building, desired growth, and change.” – Sharpe & Nishimura, 2017
What does mentorship look like?
Because mentorship is teacher-directed, collaboration can take many forms, including co-planning lessons or structures, observing one another's classroom, reflecting and revising over coffee or meals, exploring a key resource or manipulative or new structure, meeting with other mentors to discuss ways in which to support mentees, or meeting in small groups with a shared interest or goal.
A mentor-mentee relationship benefits both, the mentor and mentee, and both learn and grow with the mentoring experience.
"The opportunity to collaborate, plan and learn from each other has set me up for success in my classes and has deepened the curriculum and opportunities I provide for my students that I may never have thought of without the mentorship program. Teaching and learning in a community is far more powerful than teaching in solitary. Mentorship has been a rewarding opportunity for me!"
- Nicola Nelson , Kalamalka Secondary
"As a mentor, the collaboration and time to work with my mentee helps to keep my teaching practice current."
- Holly Fischer, Okanagan Landing Elementary
"As a new SBRT, the mentorship program allowed me to have focused time with a mentor to better understand the procedures and processes required in the SBRT role. The mentorship program helps to build connections between colleagues, gives newer teachers a designated person to reach out to for support, and provides time to explore pedagogy that could otherwise be more challenging to do without the program in place!"
- Makayla Smuin, WL Seaton Secondary