Mentoring Re-worked– CEO Update #2

At Think for the Future, we partner with over 120 schools nationally where we run our flagship Behaviour and Resilience Mentoring Provision. This provision is known for being highly innovative and really challenges the conventional understanding of what ‘Mentoring’ is. In this article I wanted to explore how we are ‘Re-Working’ conventional mentoring and tackling the negative stigma around it. We do this by delivering a highly structured provision based on a social and emotional learning curriculum, focussing particularly on behaviour and resilience, employing brilliant highly-trained TFTF Mentors, and putting data and evidence at the heart of everything that we do. In this article we’ll refer to a large amount of evidence which supports our model of delivery.

Mentoring has sometimes had a bad reputation in education, with critics saying it is a bit ‘fluffy’, lacking substance and not evidence-based, and when it’s done poorly – we agree! The Education Endowment Fund defines Mentoring as “Mentoring in education involves pairing young people with an older peer or adult volunteer, who acts as a?positive role model. In general, mentoring aims to build confidence and relationships, to develop resilience and character, or raise aspirations, rather than to develop specific academic skills or knowledge.” It has been highlighted that mentoring done in this way (mainly 1 to 1, often with a volunteer, and not aiming to develop specific knowledge) has low impact for moderate cost (1). In this article we will provide a more in-depth look into how our provision is different and look at how our provision structure is set up to produce positive measurable outcomes for our partner schools.

Why schools partner with us??

Schools partner with us for a wide range of different reasons. We invest in building strong working relationships with our partner schools which includes gaining a solid understanding of their different requirements, culture and needs which means we can tailor our provision to achieve maximum impact. For some schools, they partner with us to build emotional resilience and character in target students; for example students identified as having low-self esteem or self-confidence. However for other schools, they use this provision as a preventative measure to reduce high-level behaviour, exclusions and disruption to learning. For many of our schools partner with us for a combination of these reasons.?????????????????????????????????????

This provision is usually used by schools as a targeted part of their pupil premium strategy, a cost effective and fully quality-assured alternative to expensive offsite AP placements, or as a layer of early intervention with disengaged students before challenging behaviour escalates to affect educational outcomes.

Our Impact Data?

Our Behaviour and Resilience Mentoring Provision is proven to have a positive measurable impact across a wide range of schools in many different settings. Our aggregate impact data across 56 partner schools showed that after 2 full terms on the TFTF Provision:

• ?72%?of the students that we work with reduce their negative behaviour points by an average of?52%. Saving your staff valuable time and reducing disruption to learning.
• 85%?of the students that we work with reduce their fixed term exclusions by?15%. Increasing the amount of time students spend in school.
• 71%?of the students that we work with improve their attendance by?10%. This means more time in the classroom learning.

This means that our partner schools are investing in a provision that they know will work and has worked time and time again.?

Target Students, Groups & Target Outcomes

We work closely with our partner schools to group students with similar needs which allows us to tailor the provision towards specific target outcomes we can measure. For example, the target outcome for a group of Year 8 students with low self-esteem may be to increase attendance, and the target outcome for a group of students in Year 9 and 10 who are demonstrating high level behaviour may be to reduce fixed-term exclusions.

Our relatable TFTF mentors work with multiple groups of 8-15 students in line with the school timetable (these group sizes vary depending on level of need). Therefore in a typical day a mentor will be working with up to 5-6 groups. This means that a wide range of students with very different needs can have access to the provision which makes it highly cost-effective for our partner schools.

Our Mentors – Brilliant External Role-Models

Based on detailed information we capture about the school’s target outcomes, ethos and student demographic, we then position a brilliant TFTF Mentor who is relatable and highly skilled at building relationships with the most challenging and disengaged students. All of our Mentors have very different backgrounds, but something that brings them all together is their absolute commitment and drive to having a positive impact in the schools where they work. We have some mentors who themselves have inspirational stories of overcome barriers growing up and many mentors have very aspirational stories. It is about putting someone different into the school setting who can act as a powerful external role-model for students.

All our Mentors are employed by us full time, which means we invest large amounts in their training and daily line management. Our mentoring team have on-going CPD training which is highly specialised to the role, including Positive Behaviour Management, Safeguarding and the Mentoring Methodology. This means that our school partners know their TFTF Mentor is highly specialised and a real expert in the successful delivery of this provision.

Social and Emotional Learning Curriculum

Our Mentors deliver a highly structured Social and Emotional Learning Curriculum to the groups of target students. This is in line with evidence from the EEF Toolkit that on average Social and Emotional Learning Interventions have a positive impact of +5 months academic attainment when delivered at secondary age (2). Our curriculum is designed to challenge students, building key skills and knowledge that they need in order to transform their engagement at school. Topics covered include sessions on ‘Peer Pressure’, ‘Respect’, ‘Actions have Consequences’ and ‘Building Self-Esteem’ and our TFTF Mentors are specifically trained in tailoring the way they deliver each session to different year groups and group characteristics.

Each group of students follow a highly tailored curriculum journey, where the Mentors choose topics from our curriculum of over 200 sessions in order to have the biggest impact on the students and address specific barriers they are facing in their lives. Each session has a strong structure including target aims and outcomes, brainteaser activities, videos and other interactive resources and a clear and explicit link to in-school behaviour and conduct.

Programme Structure – Group-based Intervention

Schools can choose to have the Behaviour & Resilience Mentoring Provision for between 1-3 days per week. Their TFTF Mentor(s), are on school site between 8am and 4pm, delivering structured group-based mentoring sessions in line with their school timetable. Before school, our Mentors often have 1to1 check-ins with key students, they may welcome students to school or help with bus duty; ensuring they are a really visible presence around school. They then work with a range of different groups of students throughout the school day, typically delivering 5-6 group sessions. With group sizes between 8-15 students this means that on average schools are able to have between 40-50 students accessing this highly targeted support on each day of provision. This means a real wide range of students with different needs can access the provision and ensures that we are providing a provision that is very cost-effective for our partner schools.

However most importantly the provision is group-based because we know it works. There is a large amount of evidence to support collaborative learning approaches, which on average have a positive impact of +5months attainment (3). Group-based mentoring sessions allow our TFTF Mentors to see students in a social setting. We want them to see the same behaviours and attitudes that school staff are seeing in their lessons, so they can address these using our structured curriculum and training.

Impact Measurement Systems

Our impact systems prove that our Behaviour and Resilience Mentoring Provision has a positive measurable impact on engagement with learning. We hold a Data Sharing Agreement with our partner schools (which is completed during the onboarding process in line with GDPR). This agreement allows us to connect to our school’s data systems (e.g. SIMS) and collect a range of data including behaviour points, attendance levels and exclusions. We use this data to produce termly impact reports for schools, which provide a detailed outline of the progress that students make on the TFTF mentoring provision. The data that we collect from the TFTF students is compared to the rest of the students in their year group. This allows schools to isolate the impact that TFTF is having against whole schools trends.

Another benefit to our schools is that we provide live data dashboards for our mentors. These dashboards allow them to closely monitor the students that they work with and tailor the curriculum in response to the data that they have reviewed. Stay tuned for our future article where we will deep dive into our Impact System!

School Relationship Management?

Our dedicated School Services Team are our school’s first point of contact for anything and everything related to their Think for the Future provision. From the very beginning of the onboarding process, the School Services Team is on hand through each step of the way to support our schools and ensure things are running smoothly. The team enjoy building a tailored and personable relationship with our school leaders, in turn helping to ensure the provision is meeting both the school’s needs and TFTF’s provision standards – both of which are enhanced by using a powerful combination of data and years of experience.

Pricing and how we fit into school budgets

We are very transparent about our pricing and as a social enterprise we are motivated by our impact and not our wallets, so our provision is financially sustainable in the long term for our partner schools. Schools can choose to have the provision for between 1-3 days per week. For example, to have a mentor for 2-days per week, the average cost per full term is ￡5,550. This would allow for an average number of 100 students to access the provision on a weekly basis. This means that the average cost per student per term is ￡55.50 which is rated ‘low’ cost on the Education Endowment Fund’s 5-point scale for interventions.

?1. Mentoring | EEF (educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk)

2. Social and emotional learning | EEF (educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk)

3.?Collaborative learning approaches | EEF (educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk)

Stay tuned for episode 3 where we will deep dive into our financial model and sustainability!