Volunteer Mentor (Part-time) Review

2 days a week: - Mentoring secondary students to develop their interpersonal skills and address issues around attendance, behaviour, curriculum and social-emotional learning - Providing whole class subject support - Working on team projects through the charity or extracurricular activities like clubs through the school Every Friday: - Training sessions online and in-person to develop interpersonal skills

Leadership - delivering presentations, supporting volunteer recruitment events, enterprise project Teamwork - working in a small team at the school, completing team projects Organisation & Time Management - completing two CMI qualifications Speaking - delivering mentoring sessions to students

Yes, I received guidelines for mentoring sessions and had to plan out all of my sessions weekly. My team and I were responsible for supervising during break and lunch duties at the school, as well as planning team projects and extracurricular school events. I was responsible for planning which lessons to support and when to use my allocated admin time to work independently on CMI coursework.

I received a lot of support with planning team projects and extracurricular events, but not enough support with mentoring and working with students, especially in regards to those with SEND needs or challenging behaviour. I did not receive any training on how to provide academic support through teaching.

In my team, there was a positive atmosphere - my impact officer encouraged and motivated us when we were in school. For the wider team training days, I had to take part in multiple group exercises like performing team chants before and after training sessions. The charity promotes a healthy work life balance but sometimes I had to complete tasks outside of work because the time given was not enough (CMI).

I have mostly enjoyed this placement because of the meaningful mentoring relationships built with students to develop their skills. Daily tasks are very manageable because of the flexibility around responsibilities. There were occasions where unrealistic expectations were set for team project timelines, and I was also not informed well in advance about upcoming events where the cohort was expected to work for longer than the usual hours (due to trips, school events, etc).

No

Consider additional tasks you may have to take on and if you will be able to manage it. You will have to be involved in school extracurriculars, City Year activities for the school, mentoring, completing 2 CMI qualifications, providing class support, working on other projects like a Ted Talk presentation and more. You will be expected to work for longer on some days.