Abstract:

Europe is now facing the challenge of attracting new qualified teachers and maintaining those already in the career system and facing a very high level of demotivation. The extent of these realities leads to policy challenges needs that cross the creation of systemic opportunities to transform the teaching profession, making it more attractive for new teachers, creating new opportunities of career to experienced ones and endowing school directors with approaches for the smooth and positive integration and interaction between teachers in the school testing. Although both the initial education and continuous professional development need to be of the highest quality, the possibility to access professional support throughout their careers is essential for teachers and the educational systems. According to the conclusions of the Council of the European Union, 2020/C, it is critical to ensure the effectiveness, innovation and high quality of the educational system, to update the competences of teachers and trainers and prepare them to change, to be proactive and innovative. This includes training, induction and quality mentoring, as well as promoting and supporting continuous professional development throughout the teaching careers.

Considering these European challenges, the LOOP project (no. 626148-EPP-1-2020-2-PT-EPPKA3-PI-POLICY) is changing the way new teachers and experienced teachers cooperate with each other based on a mentoring relationship to ease the process of integration of new teachers in the school setting, preparing them to the teaching profession and career and to establish mutual-learning opportunities essential to work in a team. To achieve these goals, two programmes were structured following a methodology of co-creation, involving teachers and school directors: mentors’ capacity training course and teachers’ induction programme based on mentoring. These programmes are being implemented and tested in Portugal, Spain, Italy, Croatia, Greece and Slovenia since September/2022 and from the implementation, partners aim to test 7 hypotheses:
1. Formal training of mentors’ programmes to train experienced teachers and school leaders facilitates the deployment of effective and formal teacher’s induction programmes;
2. The opportunity for experienced teachers and school leaders to diversify their career options and act as mentors of their peers contributes to their motivation and maintenance of the system;
3. Peer-developed teachers induction programmes based on mentoring activities support the professional development of teachers initiating their careers and their maintenance on the system;
4. Formal induction programmes applied at the school level contribute to;
5. Structured mentoring programs adapted to the context;
6. The training of mentors facilitates the implementation of teachers’ induction programs;
7. Lack of resources and guidance are the reasons for not implementing induction programs in schools.

The implementation is being done with the support of policy makers from all countries (3 are part of the consortium) and is involving around 500 new teachers and 300 experienced teachers. Along with the implementation, the consortium is preparing policy recommendations for the integration of the programmes into the local, regional and or national policies and practices.

Keywords:

Teachers’ continuous professional development, teachers-mentoring, teachers-induction, teaching profession, teachers’ career progression.