Mentor Review

The role involves working with set students - your "Focus List" - on a small group and 1-to-1 basis throughout the year, supporting them with their identified areas of need and providing them with in-class support. However, you are also expected to help out in the school in multiple other ways e.g., break and lunch duties, running and supporting extra curricular clubs, running school projects, organising and supporting on trips. This can become tiring and difficult to manage. On Fridays you are also expected to complete and Leadership & Development course with City Year run throughout the year.

You are given a lot of responsibility with this role - some might argue too much. As you build relationships with your students you often find that you become their trusted adult or that you may be one of the only people who are able to get through to them. Whilst this can be nice as you can see the impact that you are having it also becomes burdening and can take an emotional toll, especially when you are not qualified in any way for the role you are delivering.

City Year focus on 8 "essential skills" and put opportunities in place to help you to develop these. For example, planning and executing Social Action Projects, delivering presentations and talks and completing "Enterprise Days". The 8 skills are: speaking, listening, leadership, teamwork, problem solving, creativity, aiming high and positive thinking.
You also complete 2 level 3 CMI qualifications - one in coaching and mentoring and one in leadership management.
You are also given many opportunities to network through both Career days and Industry Insight days.

At the start of the placement you get 2 weeks of training. However, because you are not yet assigned to a school or, more importantly, a year group, a lot of this training becomes irrelevant once you are actually in the school environment. Instead, you often find yourself having to figure out what's expected from you on your own because often the school and your managers aren't sure what to expect from you either.

City Year is originally an American charity so a lot of the culture is very Americanised and can often seem quite cringe. Most of this is seen on the Friday L&D sessions when the whole site cohort meets together.
City Year does have a safe atmosphere however and often tries to find ways to be as inclusive as possible.

Whilst in the placement I found it extremely challenging and tiring. I lent on my team a lot for support and am not sure how I would've found the experience if they were not there.
I think that once I have finished this placement there will be a part of me that misses it due to the constant challenges and the fact that no day is ever the same. However, with that being said I am glad to be finishing soon.

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