ONSIDE Mentoring: a framework for supporting professional learning, development and well-being

This chapter discusses a holistic mentoring framework, called ONSIDE Mentoring, which has been designed to provide effective support for the professional learning, development and well-being of early career teachers. The chapter outlines and provides empirical and theoretical support for seven imperatives of ONSIDE Mentoring, and identifies key elements of a supportive architecture for ONSIDE Mentoring. While developed with a primary focus on early career teachers, the research underpinning ONSIDE Mentoring includes two studies of teachers of all career phases, and a study of ten exemplary mentoring programmes across various employment sectors and six countries (Hobson et al., 2016). The ONSIDE Mentoring framework also shares key assumptions with influential models of mentoring, and theories of well-being, learning and professional learning, which are not specific to the teaching profession, or to early career professionals. As such, ONSIDE Mentoring is potentially applicable to other professional career phases and other professional contexts beyond teaching.