The Mentoring Service @ Basingstoke Consortium

The mentoring service matches business people from the community with secondary school students, working with them over a sustained period of time to raise their confidence, motivation and equip them with the necessary skills to make informed and positive choices in their lives. The project trains the mentors and works closely with the school to ensure that every young person has a bespoke mentoring programme targeted to their specific needs.

The project helps young people by offering a flexible and non-judgemental programme that allows them to learn from positive role models. The programme can be targeted at specific outcomes such as attendance, target setting, timekeeping or grade raising or focus on more generic areas such as confidence and aspiration raising and interview skills. In every case the student is carefully matched to the business mentor. Mentoring can take place for a term or throughout the academic year, typically sessions are held every 3-4 weeks, in school time for 30-45 minutes.