Mentoring scheme introduced

Hornby High School and the Canterbury University are teaming up to provide a new mentoring programme for students in years 11-13.

Focusing on the exams in term 3, the programme, which will involve 35 university mentors, will run for 16 weeks and pupils will meet with their mentors on eight occasions over this period.

Hornby High principal Richard Edmundson said that the programme was part of building learning pathways for the pupils.

"These UC mentors have recently left high school and have first-hand experience of how to be successful in NCEA, in their mentoring they pass this valuable experience on to the Hornby pupils and assist them in creating pathways for their tertiary study," said Mr Edmundson.

The mentoring programme is planned to expand to the wider Hornby Learning Community next year.

"This will give us a seamless educational pathway from pre-school through to tertiary study," said Mr Edmundson.

Launched last year, the Hornby Learning Community is the eight schools in the area working together to ensure educational consistency for Hornby pupils.

The schools involved in the scheme are Branston Intermediate, Gilberthorpe, Hornby High, Hornby Primary, Sockburn, South Hornby, St Bernadette's, and Templeton.

University student services mentoring co-ordinator, Jane Hall, said the mentors come from a cross section of the university such as scholarship students, emerging leaders group and the Maori and Pasifika teams.

"They have all received extra training for this assignment and all have undergone the necessary checks to enable them to be involved in this programme.

"All are looking forward to the experience and we are looking at ways where one of the eight meetings will be held on campus rather than the school," said Mrs Hall.

Mentoring programmes are not new for Canterbury University, which launched a successful homework support project last year.

Mrs Hall hoped that the university would be able to double the number of mentors in its team next year, while Mr Edmundson said that a strong Hornby community would be further enhanced by this type of programme.

"With time, we want to see our kids who are in this programme becoming mentors themselves and assisting the UC mentors to support the younger pupils together," said Mr Edmundson.

The programme will be officially launched by Dr John Wood Amb (Retd), QSO, Chancellor, University of Canterbury, a former Hornby pupil, at the Hornby High School Library, on Tuesday, May 15, from 7pm to 8.30pm.