HAPPY NEW YEAR everyone!

Just time for a brief review before I celebrate midnight and incoming 2007! 

Have you seen .... "Coaching and Mentoring: How to Develop Top Talent and
Achieve Stronger Performance" (Harvard Business Essentials) (Paperback)by
Harvard Business School Press - reasonably priced on Amazon at about 7 GBP

I have been catching up on some reading over the vacation and this book is
one of the best I have read of late. It offers clear, concise definitions of
mentoring and coaching in the workplace as well as some balanced critique on
the subject.  I particularly welcomed a section (though a bit too shortish)
on the shortcomings of mentoring as inquiry - a focus that is particularly
close to my heart as a research mentor in schools. It certainly stimulated
me to think 'Well Yes! I hadn't looked at possible downsides in that way' -
that too much inquiry might mean that an offering and receiving of accepted
wisom is overlooked in the drive to 'research practice'. I would recommend
it for anyone researching mentoring or coaching in schools who wants/needs a
basic no-nonsense guide to practice though it is designed for the business
world. I bought mine from Amazon; I hadn't seen it in any local book shops.

I also thoroughly enjoyed the paper I downloaded from the CiPD conference by
Hawkins about the need for coaches to have supervision. I empathised with it
as I strongly believe that mentors should have regular access to mentoring. 
I hope you'll enjoy the CiPD website and on-line resources as much as I do -
there is notice of the conference in 2007 on coaching in the workplace too. 
Details are at http://www.cipd.co.uk/coachingatwork/presales/resources.htm 

Please post up ideas, reviews and website links on this list for us to share

Sarah

PS Now - time to go back to celebrating the New Year!  Just 3.5 hours to go!