Despite the changing demographic of many areas of Sussex, where the population is becoming increasingly diverse, data shows there is a low percentage of teachers who are visibly BAME. This results in a lack of positive role models for BAME pupils to identify with and look up to.”
The university’s School of Education and Student Services fund an ‘identity match mentoring programme’ for BAME teaching students and pairing them with BAME mentors who work or live locally.
Results show that the programme has impacted positively on BAME students’ employability, retention and the student experience.
Beth Thomas Hancock, the university’s Mentoring Manager, said: “Following the success of the identity match mentoring model for university students, a similar programme was piloted at a school in 香港最快开奖现场直播资料 with 14 BAME university students mentoring 14 BAME school pupils.
“The programme showed that university students and the school pupils all felt their confidence and communication skills had improved. Following the pilot, funding was secured from the Sussex Learning Network through the National Collaborative Outreach Programme to deliver the programme in seven secondary schools across Sussex.