School-based teacher educators: a Scottish manifesto

In this chapter, we present a manifesto for the development of a nationally agreed structure for educating, supporting and valuing school-based teacher educators in Scotland. ‘Mentoring’ has long been an aspect of early phase teacher learning in Scotland, but despite the broad acceptance that this should happen, there is no clear conceptualization of the role, nor any systematic preparation and support for it (Kennedy, 2021). Hopes were raised in 2011 when a wholesale review of teacher education in Scotland, recommended that ‘All teachers should see themselves as teacher educators, and should be trained in mentoring’ (Donaldson, 2011, p. 73). However, now in 2021, we are no closer to a national system of supporting teacher learning in schools (unlike in other related professions such as social work, nursing and medicine). We build this manifesto on an analysis of current and recent teacher learning policy, of empirical research in the Scottish context and of international research, as well as a presentation of findings emerging from the ‘Measuring Quality in ITE’ project (www.mquite.scot). Drawing on the evidence presented in the chapter, we propose a national system of school-based teacher educators with specific responsibility for supporting teacher learning in every school, and a national requirement for early phase teacher learning to include some familiarisation with research and practice on mentoring.