ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the roles of coaching and mentoring in supporting professional development in the primary context. It considers the full career span and range of professional needs and concerns of primary teachers, from trainee and newly qualified teachers to established practitioners through to leaders. Knowing, and living out, the difference between coaching and mentoring in schools is a recurring dilemma and one that seems to get no easier with the passing of time. New teachers often report that their mentor made the world of difference to their success and survival in role. Mentoring in practice is often a strong reflection of the procedures developed by the training provider or school leader and these do differ in terms of observation practices, expectations about how and when to use the Qualified Teacher Standards (QTS) in England, structures of practical support that the mentor is expected to offer and oversight of the mentoring practices and outcomes.
