
Peer Mentor Program
For students to feel a strong sense of belonging at school, they need to have positive experiences and good relationships with their peers. St Luke's College runs a Peer Mentor Program that integrates leadership training to empower young people to support each other and positively contribute to the College community. The program also seeks to increase connections for Year 7 students as they transition to high school.
Year 10 Mentors form relationships with students they might not typically engage with, developing their empathy and a sense of responsibility. Whilst working within a structured program, the Mentors lead younger students through a range of activities and workshops that explore social and emotional skills, and cover topics and skills that are designed to help them make friends, build confidence and flourish in their transition to senior school.
At the end of Term 4 last year, a keen group of Year 9s nominated to be Peer Support Mentors for 2022. Before we went on holidays, they were involved in an afternoon of developing teamwork skills and planning for the incoming Year 7s.
As the first day for the Year 7s arrived, our Peer Mentors came off their holidays a day early to help them navigate their way into high school. They also planned and ran a number of team games to start developing their relationships with the Year 7s.
We are now halfway through the term and the Mentors have been running Friday lunch time activities in the Pastoral Care Centre and working with the Year 7s during extended PCG on all things IT; passwords, files, accessing Teams and OneNote. They even competed in a few typing challenges!
The Mentors have a lot more activities and workshops planned for the Year 7s and are looking forward to further developing those relationships and continuing to help with their transition to high school.
Miss Sharni-Lee Rowe
Peer Support Coordinator