Mentors matter! What makes a mentor teacher a successful mentor teacher?

In the Netherlands, as in other European countries, school based teacher training is more and more common and successful in teacher education, it strengthens the connection between teacher training institutes and schools. The Dutch secretary of Education van Bijsterveld (2010) called it 'a great example of mutual learning'. Schools, training institutes, mentor teachers (MT), teacher trainers and student teachers (ST) are partners in the training of the students. The Regional training school West Friesland (ROWF) is a cooperation of thirteen schools and three teacher training institutes. Two hundred teachers are MT's of over 300 ST's each year. Each school has one or two school based trainers and there are 6 institute trainers assigned to the schools. In this training school there are four groups who directly participate in the ST's guidance, the ST's themselves, the MT's, school based trainers and trainers from the teacher training institute. All are involved in the students' development but all with a different focus. There are two different types of teacher training institutes involved, a teacher training college and a post graduate teacher training course. At the teacher training college students are trained for four years at bachelor level, the post graduate teacher training course is one (or one and a half) year training at master level.