Claudia’s story: experiencing progress as a City Year Mentor

As part of our 15th-anniversary celebration campaign, our mentor Claudia writes about her City Year journey so far. Claudia, who currently serves at the City of London Academy Islington, reflects on the progress she’s seen in the short time she’s worked with her students. Mirroring this, she also recognises her own personal growth as a City Year Mentor.

“If there is no struggle, there is no progress” – Frederick Douglass.

From my personal experience of working with students so far, I can confirm that this is true. Seeing and making progress doesn’t come easily, especially when working with young people, some of whom are SEN (special educational needs). It takes many different strategies, ways of thinking, and perseverance to begin to see even a slight positive difference in their behaviour.

At the beginning of the school year in September, when I first began mentoring my Year 8 students I was slightly overwhelmed with the behavioural and academic struggles that they were facing. I knew I had to help them deal with these struggles appropriately and provide the correct help. I was also a very shy individual who really dreaded public speaking, even speaking in front of a classroom of 25 newly-turned-teenagers would fill me with dread and anxiety…

Thankfully, City Year UK guided and helped me to improve these areas I was struggling with through their Leadership and Development programme, which, runs every Friday for City Year UK Mentors. By attending City Year UK’s LDD (Leadership and Development days) in a peaceful controlled environment every week, I developed skills to deal with these problems and I felt better equipped to face different challenges students may be facing – whether these be social-emotional development, behavioural, or academic challenges. I noticed that my confidence blossomed, and I was able to speak to larger groups of people without excessively sweating and tripping up over my words!

Something in particular that really helped me with my public speaking skills was preparing and delivering my Red Talk. “What is a ‘Red Talk’?” you may be wondering – well, it’s a spin-off of a ‘Ted-Talk’ but far shorter (thankfully); it’s a 5-minute presentation delivered to our fellow cohort of City Year Mentors on whatever topic you desire! This idea really excited me as I saw it as an opportunity to blabber away to a group of people on whatever topic I wanted to and they were forced to listen to whatever I had to say. But a week before I had to deliver it I found myself sweating, as I was constantly thinking about everything that could go wrong. Although I was excited about the concept of the talk, it was quite out of my comfort zone and I thought about avoiding it quite a few times. But with the advice of the City Year UK Impact Officers, I decided to get it out of the way and was one of the first in my team to present. Thankfully, I was told I presented it well and didn’t trip in front of my 40 colleagues. I hope this inspires whoever reading to get out of your comfort zone a little (refer to the quote at the beginning!), and do things your younger self wouldn’t have thought you were capable of. Presenting my Red Talk was proof that I could be in the spotlight in front of 40 other people (let alone a classroom of children) and be calm and collected whilst in it – contrary to what I would’ve thought last year. I have the LDD Fridays to thank for that!

Regarding the progress made by some of the students I worked with, I want to write a little ‘starfish story‘ (an illustration of the difference we make through service), about the growth that I’ve experienced. When I first sat in science classes, I noticed one of my students struggled with his behaviour. He was constantly distracted, shouting out and talking to other students, barely getting any work done throughout the lesson. This occurred for the first 2 months of the new school year. I began mentoring sessions with him, particularly centering them on maintaining concentration in classes with other students who may be distracting him, and some sessions on self-awareness. I would also sit next to him in those science classes, guiding him through the work and encouraging him to stay focused. It was after those 2 months I started to see some progress. This student was no longer turning around when other students called his name, he would ignore them. I also saw that he had a lot more work written in his book by the end of those lessons, compared to before, with a decrease in detentions too. It was very nice and rewarding for me to see these positive changes slowly unravel before me!

When beginning my mentoring sessions, I wasn’t really sure how to structure them, what sort of approaches I should take, and what areas I should target. But the Leadership and Development programme helped me figure this out, as well as City Year UK’s Idealist handbook, which is filled with inspirational concepts, ideas on which approaches to take with students, and uplifting starfish stories.

City Year provided us with useful training about the DESSA (Devereux Student Strengths Assessment) system, which I now incorporate into my mentoring sessions. The DESSA system focuses on 8 key areas surrounding SEL (Social-Emotional Learning), these are: personal responsibility, optimistic thinking, goal-directed behaviour, social awareness, decision-making, relationship skills, self-awareness, and self-management. I have found that basing my mentoring sessions on these key eight areas has helped improve both the classroom and general social behaviour of the students I mentor. I now see they have more social and self-awareness and are capable of thinking before they act on something that may have consequences. It’s very rewarding to see this progress.

Because of City Year UK, both my students and I have developed further as people; I have strengthened some important skills, and the students have improved academically. Thanks to City Year UK and its supportive environment, I’ve been pushed out of my comfort zone (refer to the quote at the beginning!), I have now progressed and grown as a person, and have done things I wouldn’t have thought would be possible. Here‘s to another 15 years of City Year UK and supporting young people!