| Steph Peckerill, Mentor, 2008 - 2011 |
| My volunteering experience began in a pretty standard way- I met some of the RO team at Queen Mary’s fresher’s fair and put my name on a list. As a bright-eyed fresher, I was keen to do more voluntary work and knew that it was going to be of the 'helping-out-in-a-school' kind rather than the 'picking up rubbish from the canal' kind. Mentoring made sense; as an English and history student I had lightly considered a teaching career. What originally attracted me to ReachOut!’s Midweek Mentoring Project (now called the ReachOut! Club) was the idea of one-to-ones and the regularity of the programme. Faced with a timetable of just 8 hours a week- it is no news that students have a lot of time on their hands. The midweek mentoring projects involve a team of up to ten volunteer mentors spending 2 hours after school on the same day every week with a group of year 6 pupils. The sessions include work on numeracy and literacy as well as sports and games aimed at boosting confidence and raising aspirations. Each session spreads the time between group activities and one to one mentoring. With boys mentoring boys and girls mentoring girls the projects offer the children a more informal learning environment outside of regular school hours, the chance to share any academic or social problems they are having as well as developing confidence through an ongoing relationship with a role model that is not too far away from them in age (though some of us feel that gap getting larger every year). As the weeks go on the coordinator is able to run the sessions according to the specific needs or preferences of the group- dodgeball is possibly the most famous of these preferences (within a few weeks of my second project it was an essential end to each session even if we only had 3 minutes left). This type of regularity is part of the success of the projects and their value to the pupils involved. The term ‘mentor’ is not easy to define; it is somewhere between friend and support teacher, guide and role model. Although the concept of ‘mentoring’ is now a familiar one to me, I remember when it wasn’t and I think the most exciting thing about these projects is the variety of the role. Though we have all been mentors, every mentor-mentee relationship is unique. The nature of the projects is based on these relationships and what originally attracted me was the responsibility given to each mentor as they develop their own mentoring style. Each group of mentors is also unique as the teams develop throughout the year. I volunteered as a mentor at Brooke in my first year at uni, Springfield in my second and ran the project at cayley in my final year. Three very different schools and a load of different experiences. Having gone on to run my own project, matching mentors to mentees and witnessing ten new mentor-mentee relationships develop, I am even more clear that the role of mentor is completely unique to each mentee, something which I think makes these projects so worthwhile. The one-to-one relationships are also a great experience for both parties, something I hadn’t realized properly until I volunteered as a teacher with ReachOut!’s Summer Programme last year, in one of my first classes one of the pupils confidently shot her hand up to ask if I remembered her, I was her mentor at Brook Community Primary School 2 years ago. Of course I remembered her (though it did take me a sec- taller and self-assured, she had changed) but I was completely shocked that she should remember me after so long. Her memory then went on to trump mine- she proudly told me about some of the work we had done during the sessions at Brook- a great indicator of the benefits of the sessions, one girl’s positive recollection of her experience. While most volunteering is sold with the idea of CV enhancing credits, I’m sure other mentors would agree that the benefits go beyond that. What is less quantifiable is the satisfaction that comes with, the friends made (and the friends dragged along…)and the confidence…It is however, the cv that arguably provides the most practical measure of the value of volunteering on these projects. My work on the mentoring projects has certainly played a major role in job applications, interviews and general skills development. RO has been the source of many answers to a load of interview questions; teamwork, leadership and communication. The commitment shown through working on a regular volunteering project is gold to employers looking for responsible, independent and reliable candidates. It has led to my finding work as a writing mentor. My work as project coordinator was a direct influence on my securing the position of managing editor of Queen Mary’s magazine, a role in which my experience of managing a team of volunteers has been crucial. So, although the teaching career is taken a back step in my plans, management is definitely something I want to take forward and it is ReachOut!’s mentoring scheme that has helped in shaping these decisions and armed me with the experience to take them forward. I look forward to going back to the freshers fair next year and recruiting some bright young freshers to a project I am proud to have been part of. |
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