Mentoring

Mentoring

Why Mentoring?

  • Promotes social connectivity
  • Builds resilience
  • Builds social skills
  • Builds cross-grade connections
  • Builds community connections

Mentorship has shown to promote empathy, caring and connection in cross graded pairings,  develop leadership skills in older students, practice social skills for younger students.

Process

  • Can be a partnership or run by the school.
  • Identify possible interest from mentors, screen & train mentors from older grades
  • Identify younger students 
  • Determine possible matches
  • Can be free play, fun structured activities or a combination.

Attendance sheet as high school students are eligible for 1 credit with every 25 hours of mentoring plus accompanying booklets:

  • HSS1050 – Introduction to Mentoring
  • HSS 2050 – Becoming a Mentor
  • HSS 3060 – Extending the Mentoring Relationship
  • HSS 3070 – Peer Mentoring

Alberta Mentors

Big Brothers & Sisters

Matchmaking

Matchmaking

The purpose is to use the attachment you have with a child to connect them with another adult or child. 

Depending on the need/age of your student(s) here are some examples…

  • Find similarities between you and the new person as well as similarities between the child and the new person
  • Speak about this person as your friend
  • Ensure that this is a safe person that you trust so they know they too can trust them.
Gratitude Journals

Gratitude Journals

Implementing a daily practice of gratitude through  journaling to acknowledge positives in one’s own life. 

Positive Daily Focus Journal

  • 3 things I’m grateful  for…..
  • What is your inspiration for today?
  • What would make today great?
  • What am I excited for today? 
  • Daily affirmation/self talk?
  • How could  I have made  yesterday better?

A quick Google search will yield thousands of great ideas!

Embedding Social-Emotional Indicators

Embedding Social-Emotional Indicators

In supporting students with social development use the SE framework indicators in daily classroom activities.

Eg. In LA- using articles, videos etc that target social emotional indicators that then allow for discussion and other LA outcomes.

-Accessing the framework and highlighting key areas that may be pertinent to a classroom activity. 

Eg. Students are having troubles with social awareness. Look to the framework for indicators and then find ways to embed in class activities using your same structure (ie: during LA or during Social).

Refer to the resource section in the Social Emotional Framework

Daily Check-ins With Students

Daily Check-ins With Students

The purpose of this is to ensure that each student has touched based with one adult in the school. To make sure that each student has been made to feel welcome and important at the school. To allow at least one staff member to see the emotional state of each child in the morning.

This can happen in a variety of ways, and throughout the day. Ideally the check-ins would happen in the morning, however it can also occur throughout the day. the can be implemented in a classroom or throughout an entire school.

Below are a few examples of how this could be implemented in schools. This could occur in a variety of ways. Only a few examples are listed. Ideas should be created and adapted, in order to suit the specific school or classroom.

 

  1. Have staff stand at the doors in the morning, to greet and welcome students.
  2. Divide high-risk students or students of concern among staff members. Assign responsibility to a certain staff member to check in, say hi and have a brief chat with the student of concern, daily. Assigning this to a staff member who already has formed a relationship with the student, or who sees this student in the classroom regularly, would be preferable.
  3. Take time during independent work, flex time, or whole-school literacy time to chat with each student. This should not take longer than 30 seconds, unless there is a reason to be concerned about a student.