Continued from part 1 we will now explore some of the more embedded aspects of developing an outstanding mentoring programme. Here we go!

6. Culture and Ethos

I believe all schools desire to provide a healthy and aspiring environment conducive with a positive teaching and learning experience. However, some unintentionally do the opposite when it comes to providing mentoring provision.

Question: When your students are told they will be on your mentoring programme do they feel supported or targeted? Or is it an encouraging experience or demeaning? If you don’t know you may want to ask your students (and not just student council), as pupil voice will tell you.

In business, school leadership and other professional environments mentoring is well sought after however in many schools students detest being mentored because of its negative targeting, stigmatisation i.e. FSM or underachievement etc. and the connotations that accompany it. So to ensure your mentoring culture and ethos is complementary, it would help to be aware of these things.

7. Varied reasons for referral Bad behaviour, social problems, underachieving, exclusion and C-D borderline are the most common mentoring criteria are found in schools which is not good. Why? Because most of your students (especially those in the middle) will not fit any of those reasons, so they will be discriminated and won’t be identified to be mentored. Plus most students who see the above mentoring reasons they rarely want to be mentored anyway!

It is not the best situation but I understand as the inception of most mentoring was via the Excellence in Cities (EiC) initiative and mentoring was purposed to address disengagement, social exclusion, bad behaviour and underperformance etc. So the EiC legacy consequentially has fashioned how many schools still deliver mentoring support, but this can be changed.

Organisational skills, academic support, life skills, career navigation and motivation can be a number of additional reasons to be referred to be mentored that are more positive and would also address the above too.

8. Continuous Professional Development (CPD)
Let’s be honest, many teachers up and down the country are being set up to fail. Many teachers are not given the right “tools” for the new job of coping with the rapidly changing landscape of working with young people in schools.

Unfortunately, I am always meeting teachers who are being significantly challenged and feeling overwhelmed when it comes to handling the sheer level of negativity, defiance and rubbish being handed out by “some” students. However, this feeling of disempowerment could be effectively addressed by providing whole school mentoring skills inset.

Head teachers, Vice Principals, teachers, NQT’s and TA’s are some of the staff members who I trained to be more effective at using mentoring approaches when it comes to students and staff. And it has been eye opening! To witness the level of increased student empathy, emotional literacy, cultural and social intelligence, self awareness (and that of student needs) as well as reflective practice developed through the mentoring process is simply life changing.

9. Inclusive but not inclusion
I had an epiphany and it was revelatory (to me anyway)! Inclusion in most schools is not inclusive. What do I mean? Think about inclusion… it is usually a school prison, an area of isolation, a holding place for students who have not complied with school rules (been naughty), where they are kept out of the school circulation until their punitive consequences have expired. So to you is inclusion inclusive to the school community? Not in my books.

For best practices ensure your mentoring provision is positioned neutrally, aspirant, supportive and motivational to ensure it is truly inclusive, desirable and accessible by all. This is the cry in my book “Every Child Needs a Mentor” and they should have the opportunity too.

Note: for those interested in finding more about the book, please visit Amazon, Water stones or feel free to contact me directly.

Last but not least…

10. Strategic School Improvement Approach
When mentoring is viewed as a way forward for school development forward thinking schools include it as a strand of their school improvement strategy to achieve relevant SIP objectives.

Mentoring when used strategically and embedded into the fabric of school delivery, it can enhance and add value to many facets such as: student achievement, Gifted & Talented, Staff CPD, Community Engagement, Parental Partnership, Transition, Youth Leadership (Peer to Peer), Pupil Premium, Healthy Schools and Business and Education Engagement etc.

To tell the truth many schools have not scratched the surface when it comes to using mentoring. This is a shame because of the desire and sheer level of investment some schools are making annually to have such a provision. I also understand the valid frustrations some school leaders experience as they try to identify the return of investment of their mentoring operation as well as the potential wastage as their schools battle to balance the books.

Conclusion:
I hope that this series has helped you especially if you desire to utilise your staff potential to advance mentoring in house. With September being around the corner it is always a good opportunity to pilot new innovation.

If you have an existing mentoring programme or would like to develop a new one we offer a Mentoring Overview Toolkit (MOT) discovery session.

If you would like to find out more information, please contact me directly.

Happy mentoring