News Mentor Jr. 02.07.2020

We’re very proud of our Head Girl, Jessie Pitsillides, and her fellow Sixth Formers who have been providing a free on-line mentoring and tutoring service to local primary school pupils during the current pandemic crisis. Jessie set up Mentor Jr. earlier in the year after helping some local children with their maths and seeing what a difference the extra time and support could make to their learning. Mentor Jr. aims to reduce educational inequality within our society by providing free and easily accessible educational support; parents across the UK can now book free 45 minute mentoring or tutoring sessions for their children.

As Jessie explains, ‘I built a team that offered state primary school children free after-school educational mentoring and homework support, by recruiting bright, motivated students from secondary schools who were also passionate about learning. I assembled the initial group of eight tutors from Godolphin and Latymer and began contacting primaries in my local area. The initiative was going really well and the kids were so receptive, but then Covid hit and we could no longer do school visits. Pausing everything we had built felt wrong, so I used the time we had during lockdown to move the initiative online. I built www.mentorjr.com​: a platform where anyone could get free, quality tutoring for their child. The resource was clearly something that parents and families valued. At the time of writing this we have completed hundreds of tutoring sessions, we have over 75 tutors from schools across the UK and even some from abroad, and are able to offer free online tutoring 7 days-a-week.’

Indeed, Jessie has recently recruited Old Dolphin sisters, Charlotte and Sophia Dyvik Henke (Class of 2016 and 2019) who add an extra dimension to the programme by providing mentoring for UK and US university applicants.

We are sure that with Jessie’s energy and drive the programme will continue to go from strength to strength; as Jessie says, ‘education is key in changing lives!’