I have been puzzling, without coming to any specific conclusion, a sentence I read in a supplement included with Wednesday's Guardian newspaper. It was one of these "teasers" (I do not know the journalists' term), set in the banner at the top of the page:
"I believe that all forward-thinking, 21st century schools should have access to learning mentors to support the whole needs of a child."
Swallowed whole, one moves on quite quickly from the sentence, much as one does the copy in local authority newsletters that come through the letterbox.
It was that phrase "support the whole needs of the child" that pulled me up and sent me back to re-reading the sentence several times. Even now, I am not sure what it means, constructed as it is of a string of 'fuzzy' words of uncertain meaning: "believe", "forward-thinking" "should" "access" "support" "whole" "needs" and the later taken together as a fuzzy phrase "whole needs".
Mostly, though, I have puzzled about this: if learning mentors are there to "support the whole needs of the child", what are teachers for? Or, what are parents for? And then what are conductors are for? The writer seems to assume a "division of labour" that is structured in a way that is not evident to me. More, the writer seems to assume a shared understanding of "education" and "upbringing" that does not seem to me incontrovertible.
The supplement "Shaping the Future" which was produced "in association with the Children's Workforce Development Council" is indistinguishable from "advertorial" the space having been paid for by the CWDC. There is much of interest in the 6 page supplement - but there is much to question, too.
The author of the teaser quote, a learning mentor at a primary school in Nelson, Lancashire says:
"As a learning mentor, I get children from reception up to year 6 referred to me - they might be struggling with areas of the curriculum, have learning difficulties or behavioural, emotional or social issues. I support them as individuals or in small groups and liaise with their teachers and parents. We have a holistic approach and I also work with other school professionals such as the nurse, educational psychologist and the special needs co-ordinator.
My responsibility is to work with each pupil and identify their barriers to learning and find out why they are not making progress. I try to build strategies to help each child such as referring them to an after-school club if they need to build up social skills and setting targets that are achievable."
The article in which this profile of a learning mentor is set begins:
"There are many jobs that come under the umbrella of learning development and support services (LDSS) for children and young people. These include educational welfare officers, attendance officers, Connexions personal advisers, and learning mentors."
How many differently titles professionals can you identify in the two quotations from the Guardian?
And Conductors? Are they learning mentors?
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I have been unable to locate an online version of the supplement or the article.
A post "Not multi-disciplinary ... " by Andew Sutton on his blog is maybe relevant.