After years of developing, designing, creating, overseeing, training, managing and leading mentoring programmes from a school to city level, I have gathered many insights. During this blog I would like to share with you the top mentoring programmes that work within schools.

With mentoring in schools not usually being someone’s area of expertise of vocation but a bolt onto their existing remit, this does cause capacity and quality issues. With mentoring for some being and after thought, it is rarely maximised however, if you are aware of the best programmes and some of the challenges it will aid you in creating the right type of approaches.

From my experience these 5 programmes (when done well) yield the most rewards:

1. Pastoral Mentoring Programme:
In many schools the word pastoral has many connotations and some more negative than others (especially when pastoral inclines towards meaning problems). However, a pastoral mentoring programme in its widest context will accommodate the diverse aspects of life that children will experience whilst developing. I place this programme first as it is the most important one because “life happens” and due to young people still in the process of developing life skills, understanding or the experience to deal with life’s complexities so having a strategic and structured pastoral mentoring programme that provides guidance, support and wise counsel is invaluable.

2. Academic Mentoring Programme:
This programme is predominantly delivered by teaching staff and Senior Leaders and is a great opportunity to raise the level of attention, focus and attainment of students when “consistently” delivered. One of the problems with this programme is due to the fact that teachers are rarely mentor trained to participate or there is not a structured framework (programme) in place or the expectation for the mentors to see their mentee’s, some mentee’s may only see their mentor in the corridor or only 2-3 times in the academic year.

So even though this programme being a great opportunity to encourage students who may not usually gain valuable one to one mentoring support, it is important for those who are mentoring to do so within a structure and are also held accountable to make sure the mentees see their mentors and gain the promised support.

3. Peer Mentoring Programme:
Children understand and listen to children more than adults as they know the lingo, have empathy and positionally pose less of a threat. For the former reasons this programme has great capacity as there are a lot of students and the leadership of some problematic students can be turned around and used for good with a peer mentoring approach.

However, with young people still developing, being vulnerable and have their own issues/challenges that they are overcoming, it is important to appropriately train the students protect them with the right processes, give them necessary supervision and sensitively allocate the mentor / mentee relationships. This is so important. In terms of ages and gender the mentee mentor pairing must be thoughtful or you could run into a lot of trouble.

3. Targeted Mentoring Programme:
Whether it is a Pupil Premium, Music or Sports mentoring programme, to offer specific mentoring intervention is not only important but also essential! By having this kind of segmented approach as well as having a broad brush model, the more specialised their skills and interests get it will be necessary to provide strategic forums that will enable your school to foster the diverse talents and aptitudes of your students. And where there are concentrated challenges you will need some unorthodox approaches to engage your mentee’s so the provision is pertinent, meaningful plus effective.

4. Volunteer Mentoring Programme:
As the Director of Mentoring, I found this programme to be one of the best leverages plus most exciting. As a school is always challenged by budgetary restraints it is even more crucial to be creative and innovative. So to gain high quality support at a highly reduced cost (some times for free) was a no brainer for me. But, also because I could train the volunteer, discern their skills and place them in programmes it was very cost friendly for my organisation and great for the students.

Even though this programme is great, it also creates great risks and will need greater care and insight as the safeguarding challenges are significantly increased. Adult volunteers coming into school always has its risks and the greater the turn over increases the risks. DBS’s are standard procedure and profiling is also imperative. To ensure there is a tight grip on your volunteer programme with coordination and accountability being paramount. This programme is not for organisations just “trying mentoring”. Also a structure and framework is essential!

5. Form Tutor Mentoring Programme:
Finally… this is increasing becoming my mentoring programme of choice. As you are aware of my vision for every child to have access to mentoring this programme heavily leans towards providing such support. Historically, the form tutor was and is one of the most strategic ways to mentor your students as they will know their group and be the common denominator for the schools and home. Also many Form Tutors are emotionally intelligent, relational and pastorally hearted.

However, to get the most out of a Form Tutor programme all teachers should be mentor trained, as it will increase their impact, effectiveness and also it gives the programme a greater chance of experiencing success. Also for the programme to have a well-communicated structure that is standardised will greatly help the quality of mentoring that all students receive. If this is not done students will be left to the whim of personal interpretation as the quality and methodology will differ from form tutor to form tutor.

I hope that the above helps and if you need any further information or assistance you can call: 0800-644-4881 or email herman@everychildneedsamentor.com.

Happy mentoring

image: management-mentors.com