Training Peer Mentors

A group of Lower Sixth Form girls have embarked on the Peer Mentoring programme and attended a session with York Housemistress, Miss Clark to start the qualification they will be undertaking over the coming months. Over the course of the programme in the Lower Sixth, they will explore the required skills and qualities of being a good Peer Mentor through a mixture of role-play, discussions, expert speakers and presentations.

York Housemistress and Higher Education Adviser, Miss Ellie Clark said,

The programme teaches the girls to be self-reflective and to assess their own strengths and weaknesses before then being able to identify how those will influence their Peer Mentoring practice and whether there are any new or existing skills they need to develop further. Over the past few years, the Peer Mentoring programme has proved to benefit not only those directly involved but also the wider school community. The girls leave Downe with a very useful and transferable skillset which they will take with them and can apply throughout their lives. 

In the Upper Sixth, the mentoring begins with the new girls who have joined Remove and Lower Fourth. The Mentors visit the Lower School boarding Houses to meet up with Remove and Lower Fourth girls to help them settle into School life and to support them, both academically and pastorally.The programme enables the Mentors work towards a nationally recognised Edexcel Award in Peer Mentoring and so they have to produce a portfolio of evidence throughout the course, which is combined with regular observations. In the Lent term of Upper Sixth, the Mentors do a debrief of their mentoring experiences and their evidence portfolios are sent off to be externally moderated. The girls receive recognition of their participation and completion of the course in a whole School assembly at the end of term.