Envision Mentoring

On Tuesday 31st October, a group year 12 students  took part in their first business mentoring session through Envision’s Community-Apprentice competition. The session was between St. Martin-in-the-Fields High School for Girls and FLO Tideway Central, the contractors responsible for the construction of the central section of London’s new ‘super-sewer’.

The mentors have generously agreed to support the students at key points in the ten-month programme. Much like the TV series The Apprentice, it requires students to demonstrate personal qualities whilst working in teams to manage their own projects. Though in this case, the students will be competing to see who can make the biggest positive impact on their community, rather than the most profit.

Tackling real-life problems

The programme, which has recently been recognised by the Department of Education as an effective model for employer engagement, inspires students to develop their employability skills while tackling real-life problems.

Students can tackle whatever issues matter most to them, but they had to reach consensus within their team about what that is. The two teams are Team SSA and Vitality. Team SSA have decided to tackle the issue of sexual abuse, specifically the lack of understanding by young girls of their rights and ‘what is right’. Team Vitality want to improve understanding about mental health in young people in the local community.  

One of the mentors from FLO, Barry Major said “I really enjoyed the team’s ideas and the evolution of them, as well as the overall excitement and joy of the session. It’s been the best use of my time and effort and I’m excited and proud to be part of this.”

Developing employability skills

The competition requires students to develop, and crucially evidence, three key skills: communication, teamwork and creativity. In the first mentoring session, mentors provided students with examples of how to develop teamwork and creativity skills and evidenced how valuable these skills are in their own jobs.

 Throughout the Community-Apprentice competition, teams take part in inter-school challenges. The first of these, the Film Challenge, develops team-working and communication skills by challenging teams to produce a film of no more than two minutes explaining why their issue matters in a single take!  This is a demanding challenge for individuals who are still coming together as a team, however both teams rose to the challenge and these are their entries.

 Team SSA: http://bit.ly/2xIKJs6

Team Vitality: http://bit.ly/2gHIYFZ

 Both the students and mentors are looking forward to the next Business Mentoring session on 5th December, where the two teams will be getting top tips to help their communication skills. This is so they are ready for the second part of the competition, the Pitching Challenge, where they will have to pitch their idea of how they aim to best make a positive impact in their community in the hope of receiving up to £100 of seed funding for their social action projects.