Individual Learning Mentoring

What is learning mentoring/learning coaching?

Individual learning mentoring completes the student support available at the learning centre. As an expansion of the already existing subject-specific support, learning mentoring helps with individual learning difficulties manifesting themselves in a student’s learning behaviour and work habits. Here are a few examples of such difficulties:

• Difficulties in working on tasks in a focused, disturbance-free manner
• Learning blockages
• A general lack of motivation to work
• Fear of failure and exam nerves

Thus, this form of coaching and mentoring is not about learning a specific academic content, but about the learner and his or her personal learning difficulties: It investigates, first, the possible reasons for the deterioration in the student’s work and performance, and, second, the mentor works out, together with the student, strategies to deal with the learning difficulty and how the learning difficulty can ideally be eliminated.

Who is learning mentoring for?
It is for all students, from the 1st to the 5th class, who face learning difficulties.

What phases are there in learning mentoring?
The first consultation is about both finding out how the learning difficulty manifests itself and asking what supporting measures can be taken to improve the student’s learning ability. The following consultations tackle the personal learning difficulty. In this phase, the student’s legal guardians and teachers may be involved if appropriate.
The duration of the mentoring is individual. The following is important to know: The earlier a learning difficulty is recognised and tackled, the better, because learning difficulties can become chronic.

The goal of learning mentoring
Ideally, the learning difficulty can be eliminated. If – for whatever reason – this is not possible, the goal is for the learning mentor and the student to work out strategies how the student can best deal with her or his personal learning difficulty. To help with this, the school and family environment may also be involved if appropriate.

How to get in touch with the learning mentor?
There are several different ways:

• The student him- or herself makes an appointment for a first consultation.
• The legal guardians make an appointment for their child’s first consultation.
• Teachers suspecting that a student is struggling with a learning difficulty can – with the student’s permission – make an appointment for the student.
• With students who are still in compulsory education, the parents’ permission needs to be obtained as well. (See the form “Making an Appointment for Individual Learning Mentoring”.)
• The person responsible for individual learning mentoring at the GM is Dr Barbara Indlekofer. Contact address: barbara.indlekofer@edubs.ch
• Important: The appointment is binding.

Consultation dates
The mentor and the student fix the dates together.

Cost
The first consultation and the next four consultations, which serve to define the problem and the individual consultation process, are paid for by the school, as is the sixth consultation, which is carried out as a status review, with the parents and the student attending. If the student and her or his parents wish to continue the mentoring, the parents have to pay for it.