The study that is the focus of our presentation is a part of the Teachership-Lifelong Learning: Supporting Teachership in a Changing Work Environment project funded by the LEARN research programme of the Academy of Finland. Preliminary results of the project concerning Finnish teachers' experiences of their induction period, ways of organising the induction period in Finnish schools, and the nature of Finnish teachers' mentoring process and the issues discussed during it were presented at two preceding ECER conferences. This paper focuses on mentoring as it affects a novice teacher's own school community. The study is based on an examination of mentoring from the theoretical perspective of the teacher's continuous professional learning and on-the-job learning and the school community's professional development (Carter & Francis 2000, Poikela E 2000, Järvinen 1999, Hargreaves 2001). The aim is to look at the role that mentoring plays during the induction phase in supporting new teachers' professional development. Mentoring meetings allowed the new teachers to describe their experiences and problems in a confidential atmosphere: they could ask "stupid questions" without being criticised. Mentoring teams supported actors in their choices, helping them to learn to analyse and assess their own teaching activities. The mentors saw their task as being primarily about listening to and supporting new teachers. The mentoring teams talked about problem students, interaction with their parents, the actors' own work communities, and collaboration with fellow teachers. The mentoring meetings had served as a useful interaction situation that helped novices to cope with their work and made it possible for them to learn from each other and from an experienced mentor. It is known that teachers will work more efficiently when they can collaborate with their colleagues and learn with the support of the school community (Hargreaves & Fullan 2000). Mentoring is perceived as one means of achieving, in schools, development-oriented teachership. Given this, mentoring should be seen as an essential element of professional culture in schools, not merely as a separate interaction process between a mentor and a new teacher. It has been considered important to relate mentoring closely to other development work undertaken in a school, thus making it a school-specific activity. Mentoring also allows a teacher to establish close relations with their fellow teachers. The novice teachers saw mentoring as a vitally important tool for inducting a new teacher and fostering their professional growth. All new teachers should have access, over one or two school years, to either team-based or individual mentoring. The mentoring meetings have served the novice teachers as an useful interaction situation that supported them in their work and enabled them to learn from each other and from an experienced mentor. However, do they see mentoring, too often, as an isolated interaction process between a mentor and a new teacher? It appears that the new teachers perceive mentoring as an individual process taking place outside their own school organisation rather than as a process internal to it. Our presentation is intended to answer the following questions:How do cooperation and a community spirit become a reality in mentoring?Is mentoring also a way to promote a school's development as a community?What is the role of a school's principal in making mentoring possible and how can they use mentoring to develop the operations and activities of their school?