SEAL it with your peers - High Five Peer Mentoring Programme at St. Gregory’s Catholic High School

About the programme

Peer mentors raising awareness of their project in the school playground
Peer mentoring has been an intrinsic part of the ethos at St. Gregory’s for many years.  The last OFSTED inspection (Jan 2007) judged personal development and wellbeing as outstanding and specifically cited the example of older students selflessly giving up their mornings and acting as mentors to Year 7 students in English and Mathematics. The High Five peer mentoring programme is directed at enhancing the social-emotional environmental factors that influence learning, promoting a climate that is caring, safe and supportive.

The seed was planted for a peer mentoring project that focused on pupils in transition when specialist teacher Lyndsey Granton found that a lot of vulnerable Year 7 pupils were waiting outside her room in the morning with problems relating to being in a new environment.  Sometimes there were so many pupils that she would not get chance to talk to them all about their worries and the children began sharing and solving their problems.  This was the moment when Lyndsey realised that peer mentoring could make a significant contribution to the transition of pupils at St. Gregory’s. 

After being successfully established in 2007-2008, St. Gregory’s peer mentoring programme joined the national peer mentoring anti bullying pilot.  The pilot is being run by the Mentoring and Befriending Foundation (MBF) in 150 primary, secondary and special schools throughout England from 2008-2010.

Recruitment and Selection

When setting up the peer mentoring programme, Lyndsey started out recruiting a manageable group of 10 peer mentors working mostly on an informal drop-in basis.  This has now developed into a team of 25 young people who are trained over two days and focus on SEAL targets with their mentees each week.

Selecting potential mentees is a four stage process at St. Gregory’s:
1.    The transition manager identifies pupils from feeder primary schools
2.    Pupils who are not coping effectively with the transition from primary to secondary are identified from the school SEN register
3.    The Head of Year 7 identifies pupils who have demonstrated poor organisation in the first half-term and who have not adjusted well to the secondary school environment
4.    A drop-in service allows year 7s to deposit appointment cards for peer support

As part of integrating the peer mentoring programme into the school anti bullying policy, Lyndsey saw anti bullying week (17-21 Nov 2008) as an ideal platform to raise awareness of the peer mentors as a force to tackle bullying at St. Gregory’s.  During anti bullying week peer mentors went out into the playground and into assemblies with giant lollipops to promote peer mentoring.

Good practice highlighted by the project

Lyndsey has found working towards the Approved Provider Standard (APS) a useful tool for giving her project a renewed direction and increasing her motivation to ensure the project is continuously improving.  She has successfully used the Pupil Attitudes to Self and School (PASS) questionnaire programme to measure the outcomes of her project relating to wellbeing.

St. Gregory’s also has an external mentoring programme in which successful professionals are engaged from outside the school to mentor pupils.  Inclusion Manager Wendy Dolphin has worked to ensure the mentoring and peer mentoring projects compliment each other and embed the concept of mentoring within the school ethos.  Many of the pupils recruited to be peer mentors have a better understanding of what mentoring involves from experiencing adult mentors within their school.

Outcomes of the peer mentoring programme

“I have definitely seen a real difference over the last year in my son's confidence which has also been shown through the progress with his work”.
Parent of a year 7 mentee

Lyndsey is certain that the High Five peer mentoring programme at St. Gregory’s plays a dual role in that it has an equally positive effect on the peer mentors and the peer mentees who take part.  She has utilised the PASS system to demonstrate the positive outcomes that peer mentoring is achieving for all the pupils involved.  

Data from the PASS system demonstrated that during peer mentoring relationships:
  • Over 70% of mentees improved their feelings about school and their general work ethic
  • 90% of peer mentors improved their response to curriculum demands and their general work ethic

Project details

Project Name: High Five peer mentoring programme
Organisation: St. Gregory's Catholic High School, Warrington, North West

For more information about peer mentoring please click here

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