On Wednesday 30 March, students from 18 schools involved in the Academic Peer Mentoring (APM) scheme attended an awards ceremony and lunch hosted by the Student Learning Advisory Service (SLAS).
The awards were presented to the mentors by Dr Louise Naylor, Director of UELT.
The APM scheme now has 350 mentors across the University and it has proved to be an excellent way of promoting student-centred learning. The 22 mentors from SSPSSR supported 86 mentees across both campuses in 2015-2016.
Mentors from the KBS, CEWL, Pol IR and SECL made presentations and showcased the impact this additional support has had on student achievement.
The event was recorded graphically by a small team of mentors who have received graphic recording training from Banter [42] – a Medway based graphic recording company.
This initiative depends on student volunteers and is very much a student-led response – both undergraduates and postgraduates offer encouragement and academic advice to other students in the year below thus helping them to improve their performance. As such, it has become an important intervention in the University’s OFFA project.
Mentors benefit greatly from the scheme as they deepen their understanding of the course content as well as enhance their employability skills. Mentoring counts towards the KSCV and employability points scheme. This year it will also be a verifiable activity itemised on students’ HEAR (Higher Education Achievement Record) as SLAS has also delivered a new optional Kent Extra module for mentors.
If you would like to find out more about mentoring at Kent please email slasapm@kent.ac.uk [43].
We are looking for new mentors for 2016-2017 and if staff would like to put forward the names of current stage 1 or stage 2 students who might be suitable they can contact Phil Shore who is the School’s administrative contact for the scheme. Email ps23@kent.ac.uk [43].