#NTU | Dawn of the Unread

In this first of four guest blogs, Nottingham Trent University student James Wood shares his experience of mentoring in schools and why he believes this can help the development of literacy skills.

Nottingham is a city which has been struggling with literacy levels and attainment over the last few years, with many children in Nottingham living in relative poverty. According to Nottinghamshire County Council in 2014, 17.1% of children in Nottinghamshire were living in poverty. This means 27,920 children aged 0-19. Work needs to be done to help improve education and access to learning and literacy for pupils, and mentoring is a great way to do this.

Mentoring can be great for encouraging development in pupils through one-to-one sessions. By taking the time to privately mentor pupils, a great deal can be discovered about the way that individuals learn, and sessions can be tailored to help improve their skills, attainment and educational experience in a way that suits them best.

In the last few years Nottingham Trent University has set up a scheme in order to encourage pupil’s development in literacy, academic subjects and skills based development through mentoring in local schools. The mentoring scheme also aims to create an awareness of the benefits of higher education and encourage pupils to pursue university, apprenticeships, sixth form or college. I have been lucky enough to be a member of this scheme for the last two years.

The scheme involves each mentor tutoring four pupils in local Nottingham schools for one hour a week each in a variety of academic and personal skills subjects. I have sessions in subjects such as CV building, dealing with stress, organisation, revision skills, speech skills, aspirations, higher education and GCSE topics. Planning is required for each session to ensure it runs smoothly and meets the specific needs of individuals.

Through this scheme I have realised the importance of mentoring in education to schools and children’s development. And for good reason! Mentors from higher education backgrounds bring recent experiences of school life that are relatable to the mentee, allowing them to connect with their mentor better than with many teachers. University students understand the hardship of the current education system, as well as the life of a pupil, which is appreciated, as it reassures these young people that university students can relate to their situation.

However, some pupils may feel threatened by someone from university, they may see successful students doing a degree as a nerd or ‘one of those’. These pupils feel like they are very different to their university mentors and so may feel alienated. However, schemes such as Nottingham Trent’s ‘Students in Classrooms’ can help to promote the relationship and similarities between mentors from university backgrounds and mentees. I have mentored students with behaviour problems, something I have never had, but the pupils can relate to me in others ways, as I understand the pressures and stresses of school life. Through conversations with me they have hopefully come to realise how interesting and exciting university life is, often asking questions about what it is like to study a degree, the costs, what it is like to live on my own or pay rent, as well as how I got to university.

In schools there isn’t much time prioritised for developing non-academic skills. Instead, teachers tend to focus more on writing, reading, maths and scientific skills. Although teachers do improve pupil’s literacy skills, in certain cases teachers find it hard to encourage reading. Mentors, who are not constrained by performance statistics and the everyday pressures expected of a teacher, are able to offer support to pupils that goes beyond the curriculum.

Mentors can use their own experiences to suggest reading that pupils may enjoy, such as the Dawn of the Unread comic book series which isn’t on the curriculum, but which offers snippets into the lives of local literary figures, with the aim of encouraging pupils to go out and discover more about these writers for themselves.For example, I had one student who likes to write his own poetry and wants to write books, so I recommended he read some romanticist and modernist poetry as well as get some experience in what good literature looks like by reading Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four. Mentors can also pass on and demonstrate the skills they have developed and can use in everyday and working life, which will encourage pupils that reading a wide variety of books, is massively beneficial.

After two years of working in schools I firmly believe that mentoring can massively improve individual student’s attainment levels and literacy skills, as well as encourage reading. Therefore, I feel it is important and should be co-operated more into the education system, not just in Nottingham, but in other areas in which attainment and literacy levels are low, or access to satisfactory education is limited.

Dawn of the Unread is a graphic novel celebrating Nottingham’s literary history. It was created to support libraries and bookshops. It began life online and won the Teaching Excellence Award at the Guardian Education Awards in 2015 and has since been published by Spokesman Books (2017). All profits go towards UNESCO Nottingham City of Literature.

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