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share project experiences usingtake stock of learning, discuss challenges and make suggestions in light of group goalsconsolidate and build on existing relationshipswelcome new, including student teacher participantsrevisit mentor rolesdevelop ‘reframing’ strategies for mentoringrevisit educational theories which can be useful for supporting mentees at Step 3 of SIRPplan for Sprint 4
Yellow aka Sunshine SquadGreen aka Emerald MindsPink aka The Fun TeachersBlue aka Sea Waves and Purple aka Veterans. an appreciation for the opportunity to view things ‘from a distance’, e.g. take stock of things, set goals and plan for alternative approaches (e.g. formative assessment); this was ‘rejuvenating’ and ‘time well spent’positive experiences from taking part in Angi Malderez’s talk and her focus on empathy for learners and allowing them to lead in their own journeys of discoveryknowing that you’re now on your own prevents feelings of helplessnessoverly preparing for Five Steps reflection may cause ‘blinkeredness’, i.e. might make us less open to new learningmentors learning to postpone mentees’ ready-made solutions by supporting them to unpack the ‘solutions’ (e.g. What is this a solution to? What is it that you’re seeking to solve?) to identify and understand the issue; only then are mentees ready to seek informed solutionsmentoring as a practice of becoming (a mentor/person/better teacher) ‘in the moment’ - a valuable professional/life skillconsidering a mentoring approach to teaching, i.e. in our work with learners, not only with teachers, e.g. getting learners to set specific, pursuable goals, with the teacher occasionally getting them to revisit their goals and supporting them in achieving them
What if you taught in a different environment, e.g. a different class/age, a different school, a different ‘lesson’ (e.g. PE vs history vs maths vs school assembly), a different country, a different culture/nationality?What if you taught at a different time (of the day, of the year, in history)? What would your past or future self say?What if you viewed the episode from someone else’s position, e.g. another colleague, a parent, a grandparent, another student, incl. the student who was at the centre of the Nazi salute episode? What if the action was intended for you?What if the action (e.g. the salute, the gesture) was different?
Reflecting, reframing. Understanding as many sides of the story as possible.There’s no such thing as too many theories.Interesting, engaging. I’ve learnt new theories that I can use during my work.Exciting, educational, applicable.The session brought so many emotions, and it was helpful for boosting my confidence. Preparing for presentations: I want to share that I didn’t prepare much for it, because my gut told me I would present it in a different way. I was right. This correlates to Angi’s advice [for mentees] not to prepare too much before a mentoring session. Loved the discussions. Huge thank you!The time is (always) now... to be present to the activities of the MMN. Inspiring as always. I quite enjoyed this session. I met two new colleagues with whom I bonded really well and got so much advice from since they are veteran teachers. P. S. Luan’s story is something powerful and needs to be heard.It was a good idea to revisit the educational theories for step 3. I feel more confident now.This experience has reinvigorated me to start this school year more self-assured than I was at the beginning.A good reminder of the theories.A great reminder of theory and practice! <3It was an enjoyable experience getting to discuss and share our perspectives. I also personally learned about new people and was recommended books and movies that I am excited to check out and I believe they will greatly help and guide my learning, teaching and overall professional development as an educator.
27th September 2025
The theme of the workshop was framing and reframing.
Aims of the workshop
Sharing project experiences
24 teachers attended. Participants were seated in the usual colour groups:
The following project experiences/learnings were shared (in no particular order) by kind group representatives:
Revisiting mentor roles and reframing
We discussed the five mentor roles as theorised by Angi Malderez and illustrated in student teacher Antigona’s story - see the annotated version of the story
, which includes a legend of the mentor roles at the bottom of the page.We also focused on an interesting mentor move in the story, known in the literature on coaching as reframing, i.e. considering a situation from a novel position so more ideas could be generated in terms of how the situation is understood and how it can be dealt with (see the bolded section below):
[My mentor] taught me [lots], but it was very subtle. It was very, very subtle. I was talking about [the student’s Nazi salute], and she just sat there and asked me: In a perfect classroom where the classroom is yours and you have all the power to make decisions, not where you are observed by the teacher, […] what would you have done? And I started thinking, what would I have done? And I just started telling her, well, I would stop the class and give the students homework to watch movies on the topic, and documentaries, and maybe write an essay and see how their opinions have changed. And through this all, she was just smiling. And she said to me, Well, maybe that's what you should do next time.
We then went on to think, as a group, of other reframing moves which can similarly trigger new thinking in mentees:
Hopefully some of these reframing strategies will be useful tools in your future mentoring!
Revisiting educational theories for Step 3
We revisited a selection of 7 educational theories (see ) that have proven practical in exploring classroom events.
Interestingly, we used all of them (!) to make sense of different aspects of the same classroom story - see . There’s nothing more practical than a suitable theory!
Planning Sprint 4
We decided to fit in 8 mentoring sessions in the last sprint for this project, Sprint 4 (October till mid-December): 4 with a human mentor and 4 with Noa, using the In the Thick of It conversations, i.e. Lesson Preparation and/or Post-lesson Reflection from
Some colleagues will stay in their original pairings, others have split to accommodate new student teachers (to be added to the list soon) - see our updated, Sprint 4 . Don’t forget to log your work in Mosaic as certificates will be issued on the basis of the data available there!
Student teachers will start their practical teaching from 20th October and will get in touch with their allocated human mentors from then on. Those colleagues who split up might want to do a mentorial or two with a colleague or with Noa to ‘keep fit’ for when the students reach out. Student teachers will use their own logbooks to log the human mentor meetings - mentors have no responsibility regarding this.
MMN as a group will aim to meet online on 20th December (Saturday) to share Sprint 4 experiences.
Publication
Finally, in our meeting we talked about sharing our project experiences with a wider audience, e.g. in an e-publication which welcomes different formats of expression; poems were mentioned, some of us already created tunes, short accounts of how our teaching has changed/is changing due to our participation in MMN are also welcome. Only if you’re interested to contribute, of course! And provided the output is your own, not somebody else’s, e.g. AI-generated!
Please pop into this your contribution by 1st December at the latest, and we’ll form a committee to review and put together the e-publication.
Participants’ reactions
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