Mentoring and coaching

This chapter addresses issues raised in all four sections (personal qualities, teaching, professionalism and self-development and partnership) of the Mentor Standards, especially section 1 (personal qualities) and section 4 (development). Recent research is beginning to work towards the idea of a 'helping relationship' within a 'developmental space', rather than being tied to the terms mentoring and coaching. As an alternative way of understanding mentoring and coaching, this chapter proposes the notion of the 'helping relationship continuum'. The directive–facilitative continuum runs in parallel with the mentoring–coaching continuum. Although the more recent National Standards for Mentoring were published in 2016, the earlier Centre for the Use of Research and Evidence in Education (CUREE) document remains helpful and definitive, especially in distinguishing between mentoring and coaching. The movement through specialist coaching to collaborative coaching is one of increasingly sharing learning experiences and mutual understanding.