Mentorship

Much of our work with young people takes place away from the desk. If we can make young people confident and settled and steer them towards striking the right balance between work, play and constructive activity, then their academic studies will flourish. Today’s children have more freedom and are exposed to more choices, pressures, safety issues and temptations than ever before. It can be wonderfully effective for children to be guided and influenced by the individual attention of a young person, who is not the authority figure of a parent or teacher.
As with our tutoring service, we mentor children on an hourly basis in London, or residentially and take great care to place the right mentor with the right child. Our mentors soon become friends and trusted confidants. The fact that our mentors are all young, highly personable and successful makes them a wonderful influence on children. We also train mentors in carefully researched and tested techniques that are particularly effective with children who experience attention related difficulties and motivation problems.


Academic Mentorship and Goal Setting
Often, mentors will also be providing tuition but sometimes study skills, organisation techniques, establishing routines and providing motivation and encouragement is required rather than tuition. Once the mentor has gained the trust and respect of the child, the critical aim is to establish academic goals then give the child the tools he or she needs to start moving towards them.

Extra Curricular Activity
We make sure that the mentors share similar interests to the children so they can direct them towards achievement in at least one activity - whether it is a sport, playing a musical instrument, speaking a foreign language, drama, art or travel.

Gap Year and Career Planning
We are experienced in planning GAP years between school and university and providing careers advice. Again, it is vital to establish clearly defined goals that draw on the particular strengths that we have identified in the teenager at hand. We are also skilled at identifying then working on areas of weakness (such as organisation or communication skills), which often involves tailor making courses, activities and holiday jobs.

Behavioural Work and Motivation
Mentors can be highly effective at addressing behavioural and motivation problems, which may be affecting a child’s studies, peer group friendships and relationships with other members of the family. Our methods focus on consistent approaches, defining clear boundaries, and using descriptive praise and positive re-enforcement rather than more traditional, authoritarian approaches to discipline. We work with a number of highly regarded, London based, behaviour experts and teenage therapists. We also organise and recommend expeditions and residential courses where the child can be accompanied by the mentor if necessary.