LAMP – Helping students shine

The Linklaters Achievement Mentoring Programme (LAMP), run by Inspire! as part of the Realising Aspirations programme, works with Year 7 students at Clapton Girls’ Academy. Its second cycle recently came to a close, and we’ve been thrilled by the response from students, carers and teachers alike.

The project works with students who need extra support to boost their confidence and communication skills. Each Year 7 taking part is assigned a trained volunteer mentor from Linklaters, who helps their mentee identify and complete a personal challenge – for example, putting their hand up in class or singing in front of an audience.

After eight weeks of working together, all the pairs come together at a final celebration event, where the mentees deliver a presentation about their challenge and their experiences on the programme. Many of the 12 participating students would not have attempted public speaking prior to taking part in LAMP, so this achievement alone showed just how much progress they had made.

One student said “I feel proud that I overcame my challenge of building confidence even though it was quite tough”; another told us “I really enjoyed working with my mentor … and I liked feeling really proud after my presentation”.

The students’ carers and parents were full of praise for the programme. They described it as a “fantastically supportive and positive experience”, an “inspiring eight weeks” and “a great programme for encouraging and developing confidence”. Their teachers, meanwhile, told us that students were better behaved in lessons and showed marked improvements in their confidence levels.

“LAMP is a wonderful tool for supporting less confident students during a difficult time in their lives,” said Dorothy Hodgson, Senior Programme Manager in Inspire!’s Engagement team. “The move to secondary school is a time of upheaval, and a difficult transition can have significant effects on young people’s educational attainment. That’s why programmes like LAMP – funded by Linklaters as part of their Realising Aspirations project – are so important for students who need a little bit of extra help to fulfil their potential.”

For more information about our mentoring programmes, or our management of the Realising Aspirations programme, please contact us by emailing info@inspire-ebp.org.uk or calling 020 7275 6060.