The Learning Mentors

To email a Learning Mentor, please scroll to the bottom of this page and use the relevant contact form.

At Gascoigne our Learning Mentors provide support and guidance to children to help them overcome social, emotional and behavioural problems which act as a barrier to learning.

The barriers to learning can be wide ranging and often very personal to the individual pupil. These problems can manifest themselves in challenging behaviour, being unable to control strong  feelings, bullying or disengagement from learning and participation.

Our Learning Mentors help to identify and target pupils at risk of disaffection and help them to identify and address what is getting in the way of their learning. Through mentoring, one to one or in small groups, they follow an agreed time bound action plan based on the children's strengths and needs. Both our mentors are Thrived trained. 

what is The Thrive approach?

If children have been emotionally thrown off track, either temporarily or over a longer period  of time, Thrive helps us understand the needs being signalled by their behaviour and gives us targeted strategies and activities to to help them re-engage.

Our Learning Mentors are:

Gascoigne Road Site:      Miss Schembri

Shaftesburys Site:  Mr Skinner

 Catch me being good 

We always aim to teach our children to do the right thing at all times. Playtimes and Lunchtimes are less structured, therefore we encourage our children to focus on their behaviour and 'catch them being good' during these unstructured times - this shows that they are able to demonstrate integrity. Once a child has been caught doing the right thing, a photo is taken, placed on a slideshow and this is celebrated during our Stay on Green assembly each week, the children know nothing about whether they have been chosen - we surprise them!

Each child who has been caught being good, receives a coin, the coin is placed in a jar in their class. The class with the most coins over a period of time will earn a reward.  Please click on the slideshows and see the children's achievements of how they were 'caught being good'. 

Don't forget to check out at the end of the slideshows for the winners' trips. A class from each keystage was treated for collecting the most coins at the end of the summer term 2017.

Key Stage 1

Key Stage 2

Well-being Programme

The Learning Mentors at Gascoigne Primary school provide a well-being programme for children in our school. We are focusing on peer massage. Peer massage is a relaxation skill that can be learnt and we believe that every child attending our school should experience positive touch every day. The purpose of this programme is to help children to improve their concentration skills, to co-operate in class, to reduce inappropriate behaviour, have empathy skills and respect their peers. The programme also helps the children to gain confidence and build their self-esteem, this also helps to improve children's communication with each other.

Peer massage will take place every afternoon after lunchtime. The reason we chose this time is because lunchtimes are unstructured therefore children find it more difficult to calm down and focus after this time. Children ask each other for permission to massage their peers, they listen to calm music and are fully clothed. The massage routine starts on their back then arms, head and finish with their backs. If there is time at the end of the session children lay down, close their eyes and relax. 

These are some of the responses that the children have quoted who are already on our weekly programme. Alaniss from year 6 said "massage makes me feel relaxed and calm" Zainab from year 3 said "massage makes me feel relaxed!" Melissa from year 3 said "Massage makes me feel elated!" Alvin from year 2 said "massage makes me feel calm and sleepy!" Laurelle from year 2 said "Massage makes me feel excellent!" Nabiah from year 4 said "Massage makes me feel refreshed!". Matas from year 2 said "Massage makes me feel so calm!" Raveen from year 5 said "Massage makes me feel joyful and peaceful!" London from year 2 said "Massage makes me feel relaxed!" Yunus from year 5 said "Massage makes me feel sleepy and focused!"

Massage has made a huge difference to these few children. We believe that each child will benefit from our well-being programme. Please enjoy our photo gallery.