Learning Mentor Hotseat

The role of Learning Mentor is to help children to overcome barriers to learning through one-to-one contact, group work and regular contact with families.
I am not a teacher or teaching assistant. I hope to work with children for a set time until they have overcome their problem. Sometimes children will ask to see me to talk about something that is worrying them, other times their teacher might have concerns that they would like me to help a child to overcome.

A few problems that I can help with are as follows:

* Children who would like to tell me about a problem that is worrying them.
* Children who are finding it hard to get along with other children or staff.
* Children who are always getting into trouble.
* Children who find it difficult to settle in school.

I will see children during lessons for half an hour, sometimes once a week for others it may be more. We will chat about their concerns and work on some worksheets that will help them.

I also run some lunchtime clubs that I encourage children with barriers to learning to take part, at the moment these include: Homework Club, Drawing Club, Games Club, ICT Newsletter Club, Lego Club.

Breakfast Club starts on Monday 7th November for a limited number of Children, as well as Friendship Groups and Circle of Friends.

I would like to arrange a termly Coffee morning after Christmas for parents to come and have an informal chat with me regarding any concerns that they may have or just to see what is happening in school.

Children are having to deal with so many barriers to learning both at home and at school, for some this may prevent them from enjoying school, they have nobody that they can talk to and gradually feel more isolated. By having a Learning Mentor in school, children know they have somewhere to go, someone to talk to and someone to support them. A Learning Mentor is able to talk to them about areas that they can improve on, about anger management and help them to increase their self esteem.

With the pressures that are on children and schools today, Learning Mentors help them to overcome these problems, as well as supporting families. Children that do not have this support in school have no-one to turn to and more likely to misbehave, be low attenders and find it harder to make friends or achieve to the best of their ability. Sometimes just being able to talk to someone independently can be enough.

Please feel free to ask me any questions about my role.