A Guide to Assertive Mentoring at Drighlington Primary School for Parents and Carers
Assertive Mentoring is a collection of whole school systems which have proven to be highly successful in other schools in raising achievement for all children. We believe that it will support us in our aim to raise standards by empowering teachers and children to work together so that every child achieves their full potential.
Key features of Assertive Mentoring
- Robust target setting based on the school’s data analysis of your child’s prior attainment. This sets challenging targets which are based on skills your child needs to work on.
- A rigorous assessment system which assists teachers to make accurate assessments of your child’s learning needs. This enables teachers to focus their teaching on the gaps in learning to accelerate progress.
- Pupil tracking which involves the child. This identifies if a child is not achieving their target, is nearly there, is on target or is exceeding their target.
- Intervention and support systems which include the assertive mentoring conversation. This is a positive conversation based on the child’s present and future learning. The child is supported with an individual Assertive Mentoring file and every child has a 1:1 conversation with their class teacher.
- A simple system, understood by all. Using a simple traffic light system of Red, Yellow and Green, children can see whether they are on track in different aspects of their learning. This information is shared with parents at parents’ evenings.
How will Assertive Mentoring benefit my child?
- All children will have greater understanding and ownership of their own targets. All children will have learning targets. They may also have targets for other aspects of school life, for example, presentation of work, attitude to homework, wearing of correct uniform, bringing PE kit, attendance and punctuality.
- All children will have the opportunity to meet with their teacher on an individual basis to talk about their progress, their targets, their attitude to learning and their effort in class. They will be encouraged to reflect on how well they are doing in relation to their own personal learning targets.
- Children will have the opportunity to discuss with teachers the approaches and strategies that work best for them in class. Any barriers to learning are identified and next steps will be discussed with the child.
- Children will become more motivated to succeed and meet their targets when they know there are high expectations that they will achieve them.
- Assessment of your child’s work will be even more robust and those children who are not making expected progress will be identified quickly and reviewed regularly for appropriate intervention.
How does the traffic light system work?
Children’s current achievements in Reading, Writing and Maths will be identified as Red, Yellow or Green depending on whether they are on track to meet their targets. Children will also receive colours for their attitude to learning. This is decided using the following table:
We believe that Assertive Mentoring will empower children to understand what they need to do to reach their full potential by working closely with their class teacher to achieve personal targets. If you have questions about this system, please speak to your child's class teacher.