What is a Learning Mentor?
Learning mentors are salaried staff who work with school and college students and pupils to help them address barriers to learning. They bridge academic and pastoral support roles with the aim of ensuring that individual pupils and students engage more effectively in learning and achieve appropriately. Pupils of all ability levels can underachieve, and learning mentors target these pupils and help them to identify and address what it is that is getting in the way of their learning. These barriers can be wide ranging and often very personal to the individual pupil. They include the need to develop better learning and study skills, personal organisation, difficulties at home, behaviour, bullying, or just general disaffection and disengagement from learning. Learning mentors work with caseloads of pupils, largely on a 1:1 or small group basis, but also run clubs and “drop ins”. They liaise closely with teachers and other support professionals, and often act as a supportive link between th
