What is MiniMentors?
The MiniMentors programme aims to help primary school children learn the importance of looking after themselves and respecting each other. Children learn how to include others in activities and how to encourage friendships; these ‘MiniMentors’ develop the communication skills to enable them to do this and can benefit from increased wellbeing as a result of their role. Schools can benefit from a more caring ethos instilled by the programme. MiniMentors help children from their school, in school and on the website. Members of the MiniMentors website can only talk to children from schools participating in the programme.
MiniMentors is the sister programme to our award-winningprogramme, an online mentoring service for secondary school-age children.
Who are MiniMentors?
MiniMentors are children from primary schools who have been trained in how they can look after other children in their school. They learn ways of making children feel part of the school, ways of asking if others are OK and ways of helping children think of ways to sort out their problems.
What do MiniMentors do in their school?
- look after each other
- look after those around them
- make friends with others
- help everyone feel part of the school
- are a role model for other children
- listen when someone needs to share a problem
- mentor others face-to-face
- mentor others on the MiniMentors website
- play games in the playground that involve lots of children
- meet regularly with the teacher running MiniMentors to keep learning new skills
Do children stay MiniMentors for a long time?
Children do not have to be MiniMentors. They choose to be involved themselves. This means that a MiniMentor can choose to stop being a MiniMentor or to take a break and that is OK. Children learn skills as a MiniMentor which are very valuable and which they can continue using in our sister programme to MiniMentors:, an online mentoring programme for secondary school-age children.
How old are MiniMentors?
MiniMentors are primary school-age children, aged 5-11. Only children aged eight and over sit and talk with other children about their problems or, as it is called – ‘mentor’.
How many MiniMentors will there be in a school?
There will usually be around 30 MiniMentors trained in a school.
Who trains the MiniMentors?
MiniMentors are trained by the same staff that run the CyberMentors programme for secondary school children. CyberMentors is run by the charity.
Schools can be trained as ‘clusters’, where groups of up to six young people from the same area can be trained alongside staff from their school. In this way, the MiniMentors programme helps to forge links between schools, and build best practice in relation to the looking after, and the wellbeing of students, that can be shared.
For more information,