Whilst the “potential [of mentoring] is irrefutable” (Zachery, 2005 cited in Zachery, 2009), mentoring and indeed mentor education is still informal and unstructured (Conway, Murphy, Rath, & Hall, 2009) in some countries. It is believed that mentoring and professional collaborative learning serve to “blur the line between evaluation and CPD” (Collinson, Kozinab, Lin, Ling, Matheson, Newcombe, & Zogla, 2009) and support in the overcoming of dominant traditional cultures (DES, 2000). This paper presents findings from Ireland and Scotland, involving teacher education mentors and mentees. It will report on the benefits accrued when mentors are educated to support mentees through varied collaborative approaches. In all cases, mentors received mentor education through workshops; communities of practice and in part, through the use of action and participatory action research strategies (McNiff, 2013). Multiple methods (Robson, 2002) were employed with a qualitative top-heavy approach including the following methods: community of practice workshop observations; artefacts, documents, questionnaires, pre-group questions, stimulated recall, reflective journals, focus groups, semi-structured interviews and online surveys. The majority of the data analysis was qualitative in nature: coding and constant comparison (Glaser & Strauss, 1967) and both manual and electronic (NVivo) analysis were undertaken. Benefits were accrued for mentors as: mentors; as teachers; and as wider professionals. The following themes emerged: i) an alleviation of professional isolation and insulation; ii) a spill-over of learning into teaching and learning; iii) an enhanced ability to reflect; iv) an improved mentoring skills and knowledge; v) improved partnership with the University. Mentees reported a reduction in their perceived levels of vulnerability due to having someone to turn to for help, advice and support. For both mentors and mentees, more and better collaborative professional learning was reported.

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