Can we work together and still be friends?

Recently at my institution, the University of Derby, we have recognised a burgeoning increase in the number of academic staff undertaking postgraduate courses which requires tutoring or supervision from other academic colleagues. Increasingly the postgraduate team is undertaking ‘colleague to colleague’ supervision for Master’s and Doctoral programmes. While this may be nothing new in Higher Education (HE) institutions I was interested in some of the ways in which this pedagogy impacted on professional relationships. There appeared to be little written in the academic literature at least about ‘colleague to colleague’ supervision, but at a recent University Council for the Education of Teachers (UCET) conference the theme was widely recognised by many university staff. There are increasing constraints on the CPD budgets in secondary schools that goes nowhere near covering professional development requirements for all staff. Schools must therefore turn ‘in house’ and make full use of existing teacher capacity to cover the shortfall perhaps under the auspices of coaching and mentoring. This drive for getting ‘value for money’ would require teachers to work more closely together, perhaps on a one to one basis over longer periods of time. How do teachers manage one to one professional relationships; which can be improved when they work but difficult to sustain if they do not.

Recently at my institution, the University of Derby, we have recognised a burgeoning increase in the number of academic staff undertaking postgraduate courses which requires tutoring or supervision from other academic colleagues. Increasingly the postgraduate team is undertaking ‘colleague to colleague’ supervision for Master’s and Doctoral programmes. While this may be nothing new in Higher Education (HE) institutions I was interested in some of the ways in which this pedagogy impacted on professional relationships. There appeared to be little written in the academic literature at least about ‘colleague to colleague’ supervision, but at a recent University Council for the Education of Teachers (UCET) conference the theme was widely recognised by many university staff. There are increasing constraints on the CPD budgets in secondary schools that goes nowhere near covering professional development requirements for all staff. Schools must therefore turn ‘in house’ and make full use of existing teacher capacity to cover the shortfall perhaps under the auspices of coaching and mentoring. This drive for getting ‘value for money’ would require teachers to work more closely together, perhaps on a one to one basis over longer periods of time. How do teachers manage one to one professional relationships; which can be improved when they work but difficult to sustain if they do not.