Mentoring

Everyone can benefit from a mentor, but for some students aged 14-18, the support of an independent listening ear can be invaluable and transformative.  


Having guidance at a key decision making time can build confidence and raise aspirations. With the rapid pace of change in the future of work, this has never been more important for the young people we work with, many of whom don't have other support systems. 


Our mentoring programmes are 1:1 and face to face.  

Ifran & S

 Years 10-12

How It Works

The SATRO mentoring programme, which has been running for over 20 years, works with corporate, public organisation and community volunteers to provide mentors into schools across South Central England.  

We work with schools who find that mentoring is a positive way to engage with local businesses and their local community whilst meeting the needs of their students.

The benefits are:
  • allowing you to reach students for whom there is limited support or no other provision;
  • improving student confidence and self-esteem;
  • improving the learning environment, often for all, as mentored students become more motivated and focussed;
  • providing links to local businesses and helping to meet Gatsby Benchmarks 3 & 5.
We ask each school to nominate a coordinator with whom we will work closely throughout the year.  We ask that the school identifies the students they feel will most benefit from the programme. For example, most of our mentored students attract pupil premium.  We then discuss each mentoring relationship with the coordinator in order to make a good 'match' between volunteer mentor and the student mentee.   Each pairing will work together during the school term over an academic year.
 
Quotes from schools 2023:
"The mentors are fantastic.  They come up with innovative ways of supporting the students and spend time researching information (e.g. college courses & apprenticeships).  This year’s exam results are the best in the school’s history. One of the students who participated in the mentor programme came top in regard to achieving above predictions. Although there are many factors which contributed to this, I feel having a mentor helped."

"Working with the team of mentors has been so beneficial to our students for many different reasons. They are able to focus on whatever they need help and support with so it is personalised for each student."


Quotes from students 2023: 

"It was good to be able to talk about things that I couldn’t talk to family and friends about"

"My mentor introduced me to the “Habit tracker”. It increased my motivation, confidence, and well-being"

"We made a revision timetable which helped with my procrastination!"


Our Mentors
Each SATRO mentoring programme is normally built on the partnership between a business providing volunteer mentors and the school with students in need of 1:1 mentoring support.  We also work with community based partnerships attracting a range of SATRO volunteers from the local area.

Anyone can be a mentor and everybody has valuable life experience they can bring to the role.  We train our volunteer mentors in mentoring techniques and safeguarding and will carry out DBS clearance.  Throughout the SATRO programme they are supported by our mentoring managers who are on-hand to assist and advise, as well as providing access to online resources.  

Quote from a SATRO Mentor: "I thought it would be like Good Will Hunting.  I thought that there would this maths genius who needed help setting their talent free, but she just needed to know that she was worthy of being listened to.  So if you're thinking of volunteering go do it, it might just change lives."
Our Sponsors

Most of our programmes are sponsored by businesses who realise the benefit of this programmes for their colleagues and the communities of which they are a part.  Mentoring helps them reach their CSR and social value targets as well as contributing to staff development.  Mentors will often express pride that their employer sponsors such programmes.


We also work with Local Authorities and HEON (Higher Education Outreach Network).  For the latter we recruit from the local community attracting mentors from all walks of life.