Mentoring as a forum from which to engage in and reflect on developing the spirituality of children

Mentoring, as a professional activity within Education sectors nationally and internationally, is an area of activity that is well established and enacted in the primary school settings in England. The concept of mentoring is contested and has many cultural, professional and local nuances that point towards this being a dynamic concept. This paper examines the ways in which mentoring is understood as an aspect of spiritual engagement and of the mentoring process undertaken between primary school teachers and the children within their learning community. The findings suggest that mentoring as expressed within the profession of English primary education, is different to the way in which it is understood by teaching practitioners who understand mentoring as an articulation of their spirituality and as a resource for understanding the intersection between the personal, professional and spiritual aspects of selfhood. An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis of primary school teachers’ accounts of how they understand and engage in mentoring was the adopted methodology and the findings point towards a more nuanced understanding of mentoring on the part of educational professional which articulates the difficulty of holding a spiritual worldview in the professional education setting in England.