Supporting students to feel safe and happy in school, and able to share concerns if they arise, should be a top priority for schools. After all, if students feel safe and secure, they are better able to learn.

Teachers and schools do much to support students to feel like this, addressing concerns whenever possible. This can range from a quiet word after class when something seems amiss to offering counselling support from trained professionals.

Sadly, this work has fallen more and more on schools, as thresholds for referrals to external agencies, such as child and adolescent mental health services (Camhs) and social services, grow ever higher.

This means schools are having to become ever more resourceful in how they look to support their students as they become frontline care providers as well as educational institutions.

One way this can be done is through the use of students themselves, with those in the older years acting as mentors to younger children - something we have been running at our school for 10 years now, with around 60 or 70 older students acting as mentors.

So, how does it work?

Safeguarding: a student mentor scheme open to all

The first thing is to ensure that any mentoring scheme is open so that all students can put themselves forward as mentors, not just the “top” students who are highly academic or successful in sport, for example.

They can be great mentors, too, of course, but often senior students who might have struggled themselves in their time at school can be far more helpful to talk to, and easy to identify with, for younger children experiencing their own problems.

At our school we encourage students to apply to be mentors by letting them know what the role entails in assemblies and also writing to parents so that they can talk to their children about whether or not they are interested in taking on this role. 

On a more informal level, students also have the chance to talk to current mentors about the role and why they would recommend it.

We have discussed the possibility of having some sort of criteria to judge who should be allowed to be a mentor, but in reality we have found it is a self-selecting role. Usually any student who has the desire to be a mentor has the right qualities to be a mentor.

That said, we do look carefully at this each year, given the position of trust that our mentors hold. 

If a student does not seem suitable for whatever reason then we would either give them more training (if we thought that would help them) or diplomatically explain that we do not think they are quite ready for it this year.

Providing training

Clearly students need training to be effective mentors. 

If your school has its own counsellor, they can lead that training, but there are many external organisations that can offer this as well; for instance, Mental Health First Aid England. 

At our school we give training to all of our students with our school counsellor in the first instance, and then with a number of our other pastoral leaders. Sessions focus on the importance of active listening, allowing the younger student to speak freely, and thinking about growth mindset and building resilience.

Clear safeguarding training is vital so that students understand that they cannot promise confidentiality and need to report any safeguarding concerns immediately to a member of staff. 

Even if it is not actually a safeguarding concern, it is important that student mentors understand when a particular concern needs the support of a qualified counsellor.

It is a testament to how ingrained the safeguarding culture is at our school that students are very quick to understand the importance of this part of the role, and immediately talk to a member of staff if they hear about bullying, sexism or concerns about life at home.

How it works

The key to the success of our mentoring programme is being able to pair up students effectively. This all comes down to knowing the students really well.

When a student requests a mentor, their head of year talks to the member of staff who oversees the mentoring programme and we look carefully for the best match either in terms of the concern that we are looking to address or the characters and interests of the students.

For our junior school pupils, we arrange a time and a place for them to meet with their mentor, while in the senior school we let the students just talk to each other or message each other to arrange a time and a place that they will meet each week. 

We then have regular conversations with our mentors to ask how their conversations are going, while being careful to allow the students to feel they have ownership of the mentoring process.

Creating a culture of mentoring

Not all of the senior students will be able to be mentors - or, indeed, want to be - and younger pupils may never need to speak to a mentor. However, ensuring that everyone is aware that there is mentoring is vital to create a truly open and supportive culture across the school.

One way we we do this is by asking student mentors and those who have benefitted from mentoring to speak in assemblies and lead PSHE sessions.

We also inculcate a culture of talking about, and understanding, mental health in our PSHE programme for every year group, so students are comfortable talking about these topics. 

This helps to open up conversations about wellbeing across the school and make it clear that there is a culture of openness and trust.

What’s more, this can also encourage younger pupils’ interest in becoming mentors themselves when they are older. 

The success of this programme can be seen in the fact that every year we have more students wanting to be mentors than we have students needing to be mentored.

Luke Ramsden is deputy head of an independent school and chair of trustees for the Schools Consent Project

During the second Safeguarding Awareness Week (22-28 May 2023), Tes will be inspiring children and young people everywhere to SPEAK, SHOUT, SHARE and open up about the safeguarding issues affecting them. We’ll be sharing free resources, lesson plans and safeguarding training courses to help your school keep everybody safe.  

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