Mentoring and Coaching for New NSW Early Childhood Teachers

Mentoring in early childhood education and care (ECEC) settings is a key leadership development strategy (Rodd, 2013;Waniganayake, Cheeseman, Fenech, Hadley and Shepherd, 2017; Wong and Waniganayake, 2013). In the last decade, mentoring has been used with both in-service as well as pre-service teachers to overcome day-to-day challenges within ECEC settings and to enhance pedagogical practice (Izadinia, 2016; Nolan, 2017; Schatz-Oppenheimer, 2017). However in order to change organisational culture and practice in a meaningful way (Hadley, Waniganayake & Shepherd, 2015) the approach to a mentoring program needs to be systematic, with opportunities for reflection and mastery through trial and error, occur over a sustained period of time that includes release from face to face teaching (Hahs- Vaughn & Yanowitz, 2009 and Walter & Briggs 2012). The Mentoring and coaching for new NSW Early Childhood Teachers program will train experienced ECTs to mentor and support new ECTs working in a preschool program in an ECEC setting to support services to "embed sustainable practices that contribute to workforce stability and reduce the impact of staff turnover" (NSW Department of Education Early Childhood Education Workforce Strategy, Focus Area 4).