Dear Philippa and Christine,

Thank you very much for sending your para. to the list - I am looking forward to hearing 
viewpoints about the Framework from subscribers to this list  and joining in discussion  -

Philippa's message today (22/09/05) reads

I am delighted that colleagues in this community are starting to explore the Framework for 
Mentoring and Coaching and its implications and potential for their work.  As Rosalind has said, 
the Framework is available on CUREE’s own website and will shortly be included in the new 
Teacher Development Agency website, which is due to be launched during the autumn term.  In 
fact the Framework will be an integral part of all the national agencies’ communications about 
mentoring and coaching in the next phase of teacher professional development in England.  For 
example the National College for School Leadership has built its new resources on the leadership 
of coaching on the Framework and the secondary strategy is using the framework as the driver for 
its new initiative on assessment for learning across the school as a whole.

There are 4 strands to the Framework:
•	Principles of Mentoring and Coaching 10 principles which underpin effective collaborative 
professional learning;
•	Core Concepts Broad definitions of mentoring, specialist coaching and co coaching and a 
deeper analysis of, for instance who can be a coach or mentor, what do they actually do and why, 
for what purpose?;
•	Skills for Mentoring and Coaching and, crucially, for professional learning; and 
•	A Comparison of the shared and discrete activities involved in mentoring, specialist coaching 
and co coaching

The Framework is supported by a whole range of connected activities, case studies, video clips 
and tools, a selection of which will be published later this term on the TDA website.  CUREE is 
working with colleagues in a range of LEAs, HEIs and National Agency programmes to introduce 
these resources in the meantime, since TDA has asked that they be mediated rather than launched 
on the system as yet another CD ROM.

The evidence base for the Framework came from both a systematic review of the literature, 
research and practice.  The evidence from research was generated through a series of then 2, now 
3, systematic reviews on the impact of CPD for teachers and for pupils.  User summaries of these 
reviews are also available on the CUREE website and the full reports are on the EPPI website.  
Evidence from practice was generated through an extensive research and consultation process 
involving around 900 practitioners in seminars around the country.  6 case studies drawn from 
that field work, which illustrate different approaches to mentoring and coaching in a range of 
contexts and for different purposes, are available on the CUREE website, where you will also find a 
summary report of the project to develop the Framework.

The relationship between mentoring and coaching and research and enquiry has been one that 
intrigued and challenged us during the project.  Gathering and sharing data and evidence from 
practice (through observation, shared interpretation and analysis and so on) emerged as integral 
to effective professional dialogue.  If you look at the comparison diagram, though, we mostly 
found that evidence of such activity occurred in models of coaching, especially co coaching.  In 
fact really effective co coaching looks a lot like collaborative enquiry, because when access to 
specialist input and expertise is actively sought out by the professional learners. So  we would be 
interested to understand more about the role of action research in mentoring.  We understand it 
as involving facilitating professional learning by modelling practice, through observation and 
feedback and by offering guidance during periods of significant change such as Initial Teacher 
Education or moving from teaching into school leadership.   Then, of course, there are the wider 
possibilities that flow from using action research to support and evaluate the development of 
mentoring and coaching in complex school settings.  Since we are currently starting to develop 
further materials we would certainly be interested to know of your progress.




Philippa Cordingley
Chief Executive
Centre for the Used of Research & Evidence in Education (CUREE) 


 































































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