The Mentor Programme has been in place in St. Andrew’s for many years. It was designed to assist the First Year students with their transition to secondary school. We have a great number of senior students in the school who are willing to share their time, energy and experience to help incoming First Years. We encourage mentors to keep a close eye out for any problems, especially involving integration and social difficulties. We recruit mentors in the final term of transition year, and they take up their job in August of fifth year. We take applications as we feel it is very important that everyone who is a mentor really wants to be one. After a morning’s training, mentors meet their First Years. A great deal of time is spent matching mentors and incoming first years, especially for new students who have special needs or sensitivities.

On Induction Day (first day of term) mentors show their First Year students around the school, chat to them and get to know them. They help with lockers, timetables and any organisational challenges that First Years typically experience. They eat lunch together and then finish off the afternoon with a fun interactive challenge together. For the first few weeks of First Year, mentors meet their students at registration once a week, and after that, their meetings are informal. Locker allocation is designed so that the mentors and their First Years have adjacent lockers, which enables them to have daily contact. During the year, we run a mentor/first year quiz where they compete in teams which is always great fun.

At any stage, if an issue emerges with a First Year, their mentor is an invaluable link and support to help them.