Pupil Support

“Every successful person had, somewhere, somehow someone who cared about their growth and development. This person was their mentor.” B.L.Kaye

As a Learning Mentors I work closely with pupils,school staff, parents, carers and the wider local community.
My role is to provide a complimentary service to teachers and other staff, addressing the needs of children who require assistance in overcoming barriers to learning in order to achieve their full potential.
I work with a whole range of children and the variety of issues is vast. This ranges from attendance, punctuality, behaviour, conflict resolution, anger management, self esteem, social skills, low aspriations to being able to work with able and gifted children who are experiencing difficulties.

» Typical work activities

Learning mentors work mainly with children on a one-to-one basis or in small or large groups, acting as a:

listener
facilitator for learning
encourager
motivator
role model

Tasks typically involve:

identifying, in association with school staff, pupils who would benefit from mentoring;
helping pupils who are underperforming in their subjects on a one-to-one basis outside the classroom and looking at why they are underperforming and what can be done to help their situation;
implementing strategies and supporting pupils in self-esteem and confidence-building activities,
listening to and helping pupils resolve a range of issues that are creating barriers to learning,
setting up and running circle time sessions and anger management groups,
drawing up agreed action plans with pupils, outlining the aims of the mentoring,
monitoring attendance and punctuality of pupils.

Learning mentors are also involved in:

visiting parents at home and arranging to see at school to discuss issues and problems
advising parents on behaviour strategies and parenting skills,
networking with other learning mentors and teachers and referring pupils to other appropriate professionals, e.g. social workers, educational psychologists and personal advisers.

Other activities may also involve:

organising and running extra-curricular activities, such as sports, and events, during lunch times or at out-of-school activities;
setting up breakfast clubs and drop-in ‘offload’ sessions for pupils;
helping with transition activities for pupils moving to secondary schools.

As a Learning Mentor I always make time to listen and talk to the pupils about the issues concerning them, supporting pupils and helping them make changes and positive choices for themselves

The programme aims to improve behaviour and attendance in school, providing extra funding and intensive support to key areas.

On joining the programme Bridge Hall Primary School committed to achieving the following objectives:

1. to improve standards of behaviour, and reduce the number of serious incidents
2. to reduce truancy by agreeing ’stretching targets’ for unauthorised absence
3. to secure lower levels of exclusions than in comparable schools
4. to ensure that there is a named key worker for every child at risk of truancy, exclusion or criminal behaviour
5. to ensure the availability of full-time, supervised education for all pupils from day one of either permanent or temporary exclusion.

The Behaviour Improvement Programme Co-ordinator in school is Kirsty Sutton, the Headteacher.

Assisting Kirsty is Sandra Firth an experienced Teaching Assistant who works with ‘at risk’ pupils and their families to achieve the aims set out above.

Interested in finding out more about the programme? Then click on the link below.

http://www.dfes.gov.uk/behaviourimprovement/