Policy documents at EU level, including the Council Recommendations on Blended Learning and on Pathways to School Success, acknowledge the importance of mentoring by recognising it as a key tool for individualised support for students who are facing learning difficulties.

Several Erasmus+ projects and national/local initiatives use mentoring to tackle early school leaving, boost the professional development of teachers, provide high-quality vocational education and training, and encourage the inclusion of students from immigrant backgrounds, etc.

Keep reading to discover a range of projects focusing on student and teacher mentoring, or school-to-school mentoring.   

Mentoring students

The Mentor 2.0 project (KA2) aims to meet the needs of pupils who struggle to respond to the traditional repetitive models of teaching and learning, and often disengage and drop out of school as a result. The project is developing high-quality supportive pedagogies and innovative digital techniques for and with teachers in five countries. It will also apply elements of gamification to increase student engagement and motivation. Its first main output is a curriculum based on transnational research. 

The Kultur Kids Nordstadt project (Germany) focuses on children with a migrant background. These children, even after attending 3rd or 4th grade, often have limited knowledge of the German language and culture. Through sponsorships, the children are appointed to a contact person (university students) who can offer greater insight into their cultural practices. This strengthens the intercultural skills of both the children and the students who gain insight into the lifestyle and culture of the children’s families and learn about their perspectives. 

Similarly, the Interkulturelles Mentoring für Schulen (Intercultural Mentoring for Schools) initiative in Austria offers support for both pupils with migration or refugee backgrounds and for teachers to manage a multicultural classroom.  Mentors are highly-educated, often with migrant backgrounds themselves, and share their experiences with the pupils to help empower them and increase their self-esteem.

Mentoring teachers

The LOOP project (Scaffolding in Teachers Development: Mentoring and Mentors in Induction Programs, KA2) focuses on the provision of early career opportunities for teachers in training and in new school contexts. It supports cooperation between teachers at different stages of their careers to bridge the gap between generations of teachers that in turn supports higher effectiveness and job satisfaction.  The project has already produced a research report on four countries and the Match the Mentor platform to help mentees find mentors and vice versa.

The Safe Schools for All: Teachers Transforming Societies project (KA2) understood that schools play an important role in tackling discrimination at a local level in the three partner countries. The project collected best practices and developed resources and tools to tackle discrimination and racism in schools while transforming the operational culture of the schools to be more inclusive. The project engaged different professions working in schools: teachers, administrative staff, school psychologists, school social workers, headmasters, etc. It used methods of cooperative and shared learning and applied a mentoring methodology in small groups. 

School-to-school mentoring

MenSI – Mentoring for School Improvement (EU-Horizon) investigated school-to-school mentoring theory and practice by analysing the strengths, weaknesses and related costs of different mentoring and school peer-to-peer learning models. The project looked into the effectiveness of whole-school mentoring approaches applied by network schools to support the mainstreaming of ICT and address policy challenges in partner countries.

 iHub4Schools (EU-Horizon) aims to coordinate and support the creation of sustainable multi-level regional Innovation Hubs in local communities across Europe while fostering the scaling of digital innovation. The project proposes an adaptive and flexible whole-school peer-learning mentoring model consisting of several core components and additional approaches selected by the schools based on their needs.