Conference Agenda

Around 50% of young professionals who choose teaching careers around the world drop out within the first five years of school for various reasons. In most cases, young professionals face physical, mental and emotional exhaustion. That is why it is so important to provide help and support to any inexperienced teacher in the early years of their career (McKinley, 2021). The mentoring process is carried out every year in every school in Kazakhstan. However, monitoring how much this process affects the professional development of young professionals at school is neglected. Duse et al. (2017) provide several definitions of mentoring in their article. First, there is the relationship between a teacher with more mentoring experience and a teacher with less experience. Secondly, within this process, an experienced teacher develops certain skills and knowledge to contribute to the professional and personal growth of a less experienced teacher. In addition, Duse et al. (2017) note that mentoring is a major responsibility for schoolteachers and school administrators. The articles on this topic show that the mentoring process has many benefits not only for the mentee, but also for the mentor. Gilles and Wilson (2004) state that the mentor develops confidence and professional courage, opening the way to leadership opportunities, while Lopez-Real and Kwan (2005) note that mentors' professional growth occurs through reflection and mutual collaboration. Hudson (2013) found in her research that mentors can improve their interpersonal skills and pedagogical knowledge in addition to their leadership roles.

This study was conducted in one of the schools in the western region of the country. The mentoring process has been introduced in the school since 2015. Every year, experienced teachers are appointed as mentors for young professionals or new teachers. In general, mentoring is mandatory for all teachers, that is, 90-95% of schoolteachers participate in this process every year. However, over the years,
it began to be noticed that teachers do not take mentoring very seriously. This means that there are situations when mentors do not provide adequate support to young professionals, and mentees do not learn much from them. In order to increase the responsibility of teachers, the school has drawn up a special letter of agreement between the mentor and the mentee. In the agreement letter, both the mentor
and the mentee promised to participate responsibly in the process and even put their signatures. However, this measure did not show any results. The agreement remained only on paper.

Since the beginning of the academic year, 67 senior teachers of our school have worked with 67 young professionals. Throughout the year, the mentors conduct various forms of work with the mentees: professional interviews, feedback, lesson observation and joint analysis of the lesson, counseling and monthly reflection on the experience.

The main goal of this research work is to determine the effectiveness of the mentoring process at the school and to propose solutions to the obstacles encountered during mentoring.

Research questions: 1. What do young professionals learn from their mentors during the mentoring process? 2. What are the barriers to mentoring? 3. What actions should be taken to eliminate the identified obstacles?

The importance of the research work: the lack of research on the effectiveness of the mentoring process in the context of Kazakhstan, the opportunity of the research results to give ideas to mentors and school administrators about the effective organization of the mentoring process in their schools.

The supervision and guidance that student and beginning teachers receive from mentor teachers is a critical aspect of starting in the profession which, when done well, has been shown to lower teacher attrition rates (Geiger & Pivovarova, 2018), and positively impact teacher retention (Cobia, Stephens,& Shearer, 2015).

But how does taking on the role of mentor benefit mentors themselves in a professional capacity?

The purpose of this study is to investigate the knowledge, processes and conditions involved in mentorship practices that lead to professional growth for mentor teachers. We have developed and are in the process of testing a model of mentoring practices and outcomes around these specific research questions:

1.What mentoring competencies (tools) are critical in establishing reciprocal professionally developing mentor-mentee relationship in school practicum?

2.What are the mentorship practices (processes) that lead teachers to deconstructing their own teaching practices?

3.What are the factors (conditions) that support teachers ́ professional growth during mentoring?

4.What professional knowledge (outcomes) does the act of mentoring produce and to what extent does it contribute to teachers professional growth?

Engström’s (1999) “Activity theory” establishes the general basis for our study's conceptual framework within which the “Communities of Practice” perspective (Wenger, 1998) informs mentoring activities and situated learning that occurs in schools amongst groups of teachers. Finally we draw upon Trevethan and Sandretto’s (2017) research on the educative possibilities of mentoring to test our model.

As educational systems around the world continue to seek new approaches to tackle educational inequities and to promote social justice, the role of the university as a 'civic partner' to the communities they serve has become an interesting and potentially important driver for social change and knowledge generation.

In part this has led to the increased interest in developing 'Research Practice Partnerships' (RPPs) between resesarchers and professionals and other stakeholders. Albeit diverse in nature, RPPs have often focused on generating knowledge (for the academy) and improving professional practice (to generate social change). This type of activity is gaining significant interest across many educational systems around the globe including in European countries.

Within the education sector, it is becomming increasingly recognised that school networks and collaboration can play an important role to support the development of practices that promote systemic improvement in schools and education systems (Ainscow et al., 2012; Chapman and Hadfield, 2010; Stoll et al., 2006). Furthermore, in the context of SARS COVID-19, it has been argued that school networks are a relevant strategy to support schools facing multiple challenging circumstances to mitigate the impact of the global pandemic (Azorín, 2020; Chapman and Bell, 2020). Increasingly public educational systems are tending to mandate and promote the development of networked practices among schools, in both competitive and more collabortive contexts across different systems (Pino-Yancovic et al., 2020).

This paper draws on two cases, one from Scotland and the other from Chile. Each case involves school-school networks to support professional learning, build leadership capacity and impact on student achievement in challenging school contexts.

The objective of this paper is to draw on the two cases as diverse examples of RPP school-to-school networks to illuminate the possibilities and pitfalls of university initiated partnerships to initiate and sustain school-to-school improvement networks in contrasting cultural and policy contexts. In doing so, the the paper will unpack the complex intersection between key considerations of leadership, trust and relationships, power, autonomy and collective agency within and across professional boundaries and organisational settings. The overarching research questions that frame the argument are:

• what lessons can be learned from university-initiated RPPs between university and school-based staff?

and

• what do RPPs look like in centralised higher trust settings and in decentralised lower trust settings?

Socio-cultural theory (Douglas, 1982) applied to public service organisations (Hood, 1998) suggests that the Chilean system is primarily characterised by an individualised culture where market-based organisations tend to dominate the educational landscape. Conversely in Scotland hierarchical culture and bureaucratic organisations are viewed as the primary characteristics.

The two cases also have contrasting policy narratives. The Chilean context has a history of a miltary dictatorship in the Pinochet era. Bachelet's two terms of government shifted the political narrative and introduced policies designed to promote collaboration and networks. More recently, government shifted back to a stronger neoliberal agenda until the election of the most recent government that has attempted to introduce a new consitution with education and principles associated with social justice at its core. In Scotland the establishment of a Scottish Perliament throgh the Scotland Act in 1988 signalled further devolution of powers to Scotland to fall behind the Scottish education system.

The Scottish approach to education, and indeed public and social policy has continued to promote universal provision, collaboration and partnership working as key planks of policy policy. In many ways the two systems could not be more different. This is what makes them such interesting cases to explore.

These contrasting positions and their associated policy discourses have significant implications for the development of RPPs and collaborative/networked approaches in diverse systems, not least across Europe.