The Teacher Training Agency (TTA) was established in 1994 by the government of England and Wales. Its responsibility was for the recruitment and training of future teachers and providing an effective response to a number of challenges facing the teaching profession at that time. These challenges were identified as the need for teachers to be: • better regarded • better qualified • better trained through more effective ITT • better inducted into their role. The Post Graduate Certificate in Education (PGCE) established by the TTA in 1996, is the one year professional teacher training course in England and Wales completed by the majority of secondary school teachers. It comprises a 36 week course, of which 24 are spent in schools. This means that schools have considerably more responsibility for training. In 1998 the TTA developed a set of standards that all trainee teachers must meet to be awarded Qualified Teacher Status (QTS) (DfEE Circular 4/98). These standards have now been revised but originally consisted of: 1. Knowledge and understanding 2. Planning 3. Teaching and Classroom Management 4. Monitoring, Assessment, Recording and Accountability 5. Other professional responsibilities It is the responsibility of school-based mentors to support ITT students' implementation of these standards. School-based mentors are teacher volunteers who undergo university based training to facilitate effective mentoring of ITT students in schools. The primary goal of this study is to identify the characteristics of good mentoring practice.

This study reports on school-based mentors' perceptions of mentoring Initial Teacher Training (ITT) students. Four mentors were identified for inclusion in the study through recommendation by their collaborating university. While these mentors were at various stages of their career all were recommended as examples of good practice. Each mentor was interviewed through a semi-structured format with interviews transcribed and analysed through the Nvivo computer programme. To illustrate emerging themes analytic categories have been developed together with a matrix of characteristics in an attempt to summarise key themes. The purpose of each interview was to elicit mentors' perceptions of the characteristics associated with being a mentor to a pre-service teacher. Vygotsky's zone of proximal development (zoped) was used as an underpinning theory to situate or contrast the participating mentors' practice.

The expected outcomes of this study are a clear understanding of mentors' perceptions of their role and characteristics, and a view of mentoring best practice.