Mentoring for primary school children
By using Integrative Counselling, I interact with the children in small groups and 1-2-1, playing sports, games, activities. This gives them their own time to talk about anything they feel that they want to talk about, if they want to. This usually takes time to build trust and confidence due to most children’s issues in their lives. The important thing is about letting the child have fun so they can eventually achieve all of the intended outcomes below.
Benefits of mentoring for KS1 and 2 children
Gradually we can help the child build up their self-esteem and confidence, which generally has a snowball effect, built up self-esteem gains confidence, a better attitude and concentration in classes and in school generally. This is also proving to get better EYFS results for the children.
Mentoring timescale per pupil
The program can work for both short and long term delivery.
It can be delivered short term for a child who might be going through a difficult situation which is here and now i.e. the loss of a relative, pressure from home or friends, recently moved house or school. Alternatively, it can be delivered long term with a child who may have very difficult circumstances at home, socially or at school with peers and may need more support dealing with issues in their life from the past, present or what they may be worried about in the future.
I work with each child for 20 – 30 minutes every week to give them stability and a consistency that a lot of children lack. This also gives the child time to build trust in the mentoring programme as well as gain confidence in themselves and the mentor.
I would be happy to share examples of recent EYFS tracking data to demonstrate the positive effects that mentoring has on young children.
Alternative mentoring methods available
Mentoring sessions can be offered in a variety of ways, including:
- Drop-in style clinics
- One to one
- Group sessions
- Phone calls
- Texting
- Facetime