Mentoring and Coaching
Academic Mentors in London and Tailored Coaching Services
We provide a comprehensive service tailored for students that are learning across a vast variety of course types and subject specialisms, assisting with application procedures to various courses and support with school open days, interview advice, mentoring programmes and academic coaching sessions. An important part of an education experience is not only matching the child to a school where they will thrive academically but moreover to place them where the pupil will be happy and flourish, learning what they are passionate about. Having an appropriate mentor to help guide your child through these experiences can make the difference in their educational career, preparing them for whatever follows in their professional and personal development. Our experienced mentoring tutors also tailor mentoring courses and guide you through your career progression options.
What is a mentor?
A mentor is a person that often designs and delivers a structured and pre-planned series of sessions, tailor made to an individual whom they work with on a professional one to one basis. Mentor programmes can be found in academic, organisation and industry settings, enabling people from various disciplines to benefit from support with their progression. Mentors can assist with learners developing practical skills and knowledge, focusing on methods that enable learners to stay focused and engaged with concepts, learning and growing as they follow the programme. An effective mentor must identify the purpose for the mentoring of every individual that they work with, whether it is supporting someone with overcoming examination anxiety or enabling a learner to develop their confidence with calculus, every mentee will require support with different needs. Communication between mentors and mentee candidates is critical in establishing a working relationship that can be trusted and relied upon. An effective mentor program enables learners to enjoy learning, gaining valuable experiences, with ample opportunities to celebrate their work. Having a mentor can enable learners to feel less alone and isolated in their own learning journey, creating a working relationship where learners can increase their engagement and improve their learning retention rates.
What is a coach?
Modern education now means that learners are seen as active participants in their own learning journeys, able to ask questions and feedback their feelings on what works well for them and what doesn’t. Children are able to actively engage with their education, encouraged by teachers, tutors, mentors and coaches alike to work independently and to collaborate with their fellow peers. The primary role of a coach is to support learners with generating an awareness of their own learning processes, taking responsibility for their own decisions in learning and owning these. Coaches can support learners with personal and academic growth, including improvement of executive function (controlling one’s emotions, time management skills, organisational skills, self-awareness of effort and more). Coaching in education is described as a conversation between coach and learner, focused on personal development and learning through self-awareness. It is a coaches’ responsibility to facilitate self-directed learning, done so by carrying out and promoting questioning, active listening, and by providing challenges that the learner can meet with sustained effort. An effective coach should provide their learners with the environment in which a learner can understand themselves better, establishing their personal strengths and areas for development. Improving a learner’s capacity to learn is the ultimate goal for a coach, providing enriching conversations that enable students to understand how they best learn and also how they can use this knowledge to create lasting changes in their future learning journey. Coaching is currently being implemented in schools, colleges and universities to support educational leadership, support student’s learning journeys and to improve the quality of professional practice from educators.
How can your child benefit from a mentor/ coach?
A mentor that delivers a thoughtful, individualised and comprehensive program to a learner can expect them to develop personal and educational skills and knowledge. Helping to motivate your child to aim for new targets and to strive to meet their goals works only if your mentor has been successful in establishing self-belief in your child, making social skills and personal development as large a part of the process as learning new material. Having a personal mentor can enable learners to become acclimated to college life at a faster rate, with summer mentoring enabling learners to get a jump start on subject content and enabling a revision timetable to be formed. This is turn boosts learner’s confidence entering the workforce, understanding the value of implementing a work schedule that enables an established work-life balance. Individually tailored materials, resources and lesson content enables students to receive a personalised syllabus to work from, enabling learners to tackle their own specific areas for development and develop their individual strengths.
Mentoring & Careers Guidance
If you would like to discuss mentoring programmes and professional academic coaching sessions and consultancy in England as well as schools advisory services please call us on Tel: +44 (0) 207 665 6606 or you can send us an email via our contact form.
Useful Mentoring Links:
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/coaching-and-mentoring
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/academic-mentors
http://www.skillsforschools.org.uk/roles-in-schools/learning-mentor/
https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/education-evidence/teaching-learning-toolkit/mentoring
https://www.et-foundation.co.uk/professional-development/mentoring/
https://www.alphaplus.co.uk/2021/05/12/mentoring-in-fe/