The essence of mentoring in continuing professional development of teaching staff in Great Britain

Introduction: The article is devoted to the British experience of enhancing practical learning within Initial Teacher Education (ITE) and Continuing Professional Development (CPD) of educators through the mentoring process. The purpose of the article is to identify the essence, key features and attributes of mentoring within the main stages in teachers’ professional development. Materials and Methods: The research methods include theoretical and comparative analysis of a range of prominent theoretical works, research reports and regulatory documents on mentoring within various educational fields. In order to provide a comparative analysis, the author traces the evolution of research into mentoring in British, Soviet and contemporary Russian education, psychology and philosophy. Results: The author emphasizes the enhanced role of mentoring in the context of ITE and CPD in Great Britain, identifies the distinctive features of such close notions as mentoring, coaching and tutoring, reviews and analyses the classifications of mentoring models. The majority of researchers point out the authoritarian topdown traditional model based on the transference of knowledge and the reciprocal model, which is concerned with collaborative complementary relationship, based on support, facilitation, emotional connection and sharing of power between mentors and mentees. Conclusion: The paper concludes that mentoring is a personcentered process based on professional values, support, guidance, facilitation, encouragement, enabling, and collaboration which contributes significantly to continuity of education, as well as professional and personal development of teaching staff. The main types of mentoring include mentoring of student teachers, mentoring for induction, mentoring for career transitions (for progression), mentoring for challenge, and peermentoring. Mentoring is a proactive reciprocal process aimed at development, improvement and growth.