Achieving the objectives of the United Nations Sustainability Goal 4, ensuring inclusive and equitable quality education and promoting lifelong learning opportunities for all, is a challenge for South African schools that are affected by a range of radical social, political, economic, cultural, and pedagogical challenges. Research shows that school principals encounter considerable environmental constraints when transitioning from classroom teachers and mid-level management roles to school leaders. Also, newly appointed school leaders often lack the essential skills, knowledge, and leadership abilities needed to make transformative decisions to navigate tensions for leading successful schools.

To compound the challenge for principals in high achieving schools, there is a competing tension between the demands of academic excellence and inclusion. In these high-stakes education systems, the yardstick to gauge the quality of education provision sees associated thinking and community pressures go directly to academic achievement, where examination results are seen as a disproportional indicator of a child's intellectual worth. It is therefore assumed that a school that meets its academic achievement goals or ranking targets is deemed to be a provider of this so-called quality education. These academic results often determine the school's status within its community and/or its national, or even international ranking. This obsession with testing and rankings as a benchmark of success leaves little room for school leaders to focus on the pedagogical approaches and operational strategies needed to meet the challenge of teaching learners with different learning needs and address the path dependencies they need to transform.

To support aspirant school leaders facing these challenges, a bespoke Master of Education in Leadership Degree, at a Johannesburg university, piloted a mentorship program, parallel to the academic program, where experienced school principals mentor the enrolled students who were selected onto the competitive M Ed program.

This paper focuses on the perspectives and experiences of the mentors. The first section in the paper provides an overview of the literature on mentorship in schools, focusing on mentors' experiences of mentoring and the different theoretical frameworks of mentorship they utilize. The second part of the paper presents initial findings from a qualitative study where (n=10) mentors participated in three sets of semi-structured interviews to determine, firstly, what theoretical underpinnings supported their mentoring, and secondly, their impressions of the impact that their one-on-one engagement with the mentees was having on preparing the aspirant school leaders (students) to successfully transition from middle management and the classroom into school principals. Initial findings show that mentors favour a hybrid mentorship strategy that focuses on reflection, with an element of coaching that emphasises setting tasks, and relational one-on-one engagements that provide opportunity for emotional support and problem solving. Mentors also found that site visits were beneficial for observing the mentee leading within the context of their working environment.

Keywords: Mentorship, mentors, principals, school leaders, inclusive education.