Middle Level Peer Mentoring Programs

Middle level students are at a very unique stage of their development, where having support both academically and emotionally are of the utmost importance. Given that the transition from an elementary school to a middle school can be so difficult, as there is so much changing in a young adolescent’s life, it is essential for students to have mentors. Adults can show excellent mentoring through advisory in the middle level, but students require attention from more than just adults. During this time in their development, middle grade students have many uncertainties, and one of the most prevalent things they think about is seeking approval from peers. Middle level students struggle with big transitions, have many uncertainties, are seeking a sense of belongingness and have the need to feel connectedness to school, self, and others. “Connectedness occurs when a person is actively involved with another person, object, group or environment” (Hagerty, 1993). Peer mentoring allows students to connect with one another in positive way, which is why I believe that mentoring programs should be necessary in every middle school.

As a sixth grade student about to leave an elementary school I knew and loved to enter a much larger middle school, I was very uncertain about how I would feel at the new school. Toward the end of the school year I received a letter in the mail from a seventh grade student at the middle school I was about to attend. She introduced herself, talked about her hobbies and interests, what she was most nervous about for middle school and how she dealt with it, what she liked about middle school, how the teachers and classes were, and how she was excited to meet me. I was so happy to read that somebody in this big new school I was about to attend was excited to meet me, and since she reached out to me I wasn’t afraid to approach older students. Receiving this letter shifted my feelings entirely, and instead of feeling nervous about middle school I started to feel excited for my middle school experience. Just by having one older student reach out to me and show support made a huge different for me, so this is why I am intrigued in peer mentoring programs in the middle level. I want for all students to experience the support I felt through that one letter, but on a more regular basis.

During Middle Grades Organization this semester we had guest speakers who teach at local middle schools talk to our class about a peer mentoring program in their 6-8 middle schools, where 6th and 7th grade students are paired with 7th or 8th grade students. This helps to build a community where students connect with people who are not just in their grade, getting them to mingle with students that are younger and older than them. It also helps students to have a comfortable transition into middle school, by getting to know another student individually and hear about their experience in middle school so far. The guest speakers said the strongest factor that motivates older students to be a great mentor to incoming students, is that they had an enjoyable experience when they were incoming students and had an awesome older mentor. Thus, once this cycle is established it makes for very positive peer mentoring experiences.

Through my research I have found many programs where middle level students have been excited to partake in mentoring programs with those at other ages. At a school in the Thames Valley District in Ontario, students in 7th and 8th grade were given the option to become mentors for local elementary school students in 2nd and 3rd grade. Though this is not a peer mentoring program specifically within a middle school, it showed the way middle level students were motivated to be part of a mentoring experience. Students were given the opportunity to become role models for younger students to look up to. This is not mandatory for students to partake in, but rather they could choose if they were interested in volunteering their time to mentoring local children. Some factors within this study that made the program successful were the length of the student’s involvement, mentor training, frequency of contact to mentors, proper mentor matching, and structured activities for mentor pairs to partake in.  Questionnaires were distributed to participants in the mentoring program, providing us with information on the experience. Though the pretest showed that students were excited yet nervous for the mentoring experience, the post test showed that both mentors and mentees greatly benefited from the program. Post test results showed that both the older and younger students had a positive experience interacting and playing with their mentor/mentee, as well as many skills being built. Students said they noticed a difference in their communication, social skills, self-esteem, and some even stated that their behaviors have significantly changed. One mentee said the experience made them more easy going, and another mentee said that they have stayed out of trouble during the program. Of the middle level students who served as mentors, about 70% of them felt a stronger sense of connectedness to the school, however there was a slight decrease in a feeling of connectedness for the mentees in 2nd and 3rd grade. I think there would be an increase in connectedness if the age gap wasn’t so significant, and because the mentors and mentees attended different schools there is no improvement of connectedness within one school. This school’s student mentoring program found that it was most helpful to students who had instability in their home situations, as this mentoring resulted in students having a sense of belonging and students feeling safe and comfortable at school. Questionnaires showed that 86% of students, (both mentors and mentees) involved in this program enjoyed their peer mentoring experience. This study shows that middle level students show interest and can greatly benefit in student mentoring programs.

Another mentoring experience I read about introduces the successes within a middle level peer mentoring program at Mill Creek Middle School in Michigan. Sixth grade students that were new to this middle school break into groups of 6-8 people, calling them “families” in which an eighth grade student is assigned to. The eighth grader is to help guide them in what to expect, how to be successful academically, and are there for emotional support. The “family” groups meet up on the first day of school to help sixth grade students transition into middle school, then after that they meet up once a month and whenever support is needed. This program is not run by teachers, but rather run by students, as the administration recognized that students can be trained to help one another succeed socially and academically. The fascinating thing about this school’s program is that eighth grade students present the rules and expectations to new students, which then holds the eighth grade students to showing new students what it looks like to follow the rules that they spent so much time informing the new grade students about. This is a great opportunity for eighth grade students to work on their speaking and presenting skills, leadership skills, build new connections, and more. This program is so successful that when an issue arises in the school, the teachers can rely on the students to take care of it by speaking with their family mentoring groups.

Benefits of peer mentoring are seen clearly from a teacher’s standpoint as well, with a focus on how it affects students during transitions from elementary to middle schools. Another article I found discusses a school in Ireland where the benefits of peer mentoring programs included effective communication, availability of social and emotional support, and awareness of the difficulty of transitioning from primary to secondary schools. Students go from a small, personalized, community oriented school to a bigger, more complex, and more impersonal environment, which can give students anxiety in many ways. During this time, students also are facing challenges academically and socially, they may have personal/family issues, and the pressure that students are under in the beginning of secondary school often determines their interest and the duration of their education. The goal of the peer mentoring program in this article is to allow students to feel connectedness to their school, ease the process of the transition, and to show that it is necessary for schools to pay attention to student wellness, especially during such transitions.

For a school looking to start mentoring programs, there are several resources to help guide them. First, there is SkillsUSA which provides a guide of how to start a student mentoring program within a school for high school or college, though they can be applied to middle level, too. It outlines the importance of mentoring programs and the benefits that arise from it as well as promoting overlying themes of SkillsUSA. SkillsUSA is a nonprofit organization that recognizes that our current students are our country’s future leaders, workers, producers, entrepreneurs, and more and they work toward building a strong future for our country by building students’ skills. The benefits this website mentions are a rise in self-esteem, academic success, supplying support to students, reducing student drop outs, and more. Students being involved in a mentoring program is greatly beneficial to the students themselves, the social climate, cooperation within the classroom, and making a middle level team feel more like a strongly connected community. Any involvement at all is good for students, as “involvement promotes a sense of comfort, well-being, and anxiety reduction” (Hagerty, 1993) among students, but mentoring can help students to build many skills while growing close to one another.

From this guide, schools can understand how to start up a mentoring program, however proper training is required for successful programs. The Boomerang Project is one company that goes into schools to present on student leadership, service learning, character development, bullying prevention, peer to peer mentoring, and middle level transitions. The company recognizes that transitioning into middle school is a very important time for students, and there are not many programs available to help students with this time. The Boomerang Project emphasizes the importance of students feeling safe and connected, as well as being informed during this middle level transition. Also available on their site are links to the company’s webinars, brochures, anti-bullying information, statistics on student success before and after their programming, blog posts about how to achieve student success, and more. This is a great resources for teachers and administration, as it can help introduce effective middle level transition and student to student mentoring programs.

There are several important components to mentoring programs that teachers and administrators must consider when implementing peer mentoring into their school. In order for this kind of program to be successful, it takes a strong relationship and trust between the educator and students involved. Developing classroom norms that help to create a tight knit community among students and makes the learning space conducive to student support is essential for students to feel as though they both give and receive respect and empathy.

Individual student benefits of a successful mentoring program can include:

• Developing a feeling of belongingness at school
• Students staying out of trouble
• Significant support during such a huge transition
• A rise in academic success
• Fulfillment from one-on-one time with an adult

Benefits of peer mentoring programs are seen among the community around students as well, such as:

• Community atmosphere on the middle level team
• Cooperation and communication within classroom
• A sense of connectedness among students and teachers

Some proper ways to prepare for a successful peer mentoring program in your school:

• A thorough training program for both teachers and student mentors
• Knowing your resources (such as SkillsUSA and The Boomerang Project) and accessing information from them as needed
• Coming to an agreement with students on the purpose of implementing such programs and provide them with clear expectations of the experience

For more information on this topic and additional resources see the link here.