Mentoring students for higher results

This year our school implemented a programme to support students in reaching Merit or Excellence endorsements in NCEA. Teachers mentor small groups, providing them with support in the form of meetings, shared documents, study calendars and conversation. 

This past week I surveyed students and parents. I wanted to find out from students how proactive they were being in reaching their goals, including their study habits, planning, contact with mentors and conversations with other teachers. A couple of things stood out - a number of students are not aware of how they are tracking towards an endorsement, meaning that they are not keeping track of their credits; and a number have yet to set up a study plan, just two weeks out from important school exams.

This reinforces what I had suspected based on my experiences with my own group, where I have struggled to get students to meetings or even to respond to emails: our students are still struggling to manage themselves at critical times of their study. 

I'm one of the coordinators of the programme and to me this highlights the need to:
  • Put more emphasis on students self-managing their goal setting and achievement from Year 9, rather than teachers pushing students through in senior level. Our school has made fantastic progress with this over the past year with the implementation of an individual target score in every subject, from Year 9 through to 13. This should continue to strengthen students' focus on reaching their learning potential.
  • Continue to emphasise academic excellence. Our students love sport and excel at it and the number of extra-curricular activities pursued by our cohort does mean less time to commit to achieving high academic results. As departments (and teachers) are being held more accountable for results, there is a bit of a conflict with teachers pushing higher results rather than them being driven by student aspirations. I hope that the use of target scores and Endorsement Programme will flip this around.
  • Re-examine how we teach our students how to study at junior level. It is a concern that senior students - who have opted to strive for a Merit or Excellence endorsement - don't know how to plan for their study or how to study effectively despite attending study skills sessions and having sat exams in Years 9 and 10.  
This programme is about encouraging students to aim high but we need to make sure the students not only aim high but know how to achieve it, and that it is not just driven by the teachers.


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