Matt Grimes (Staff)

1. Matt Grimes (Staff) 1st year UG Music Ind students The principle behind the project was that Craig Hamilton, the SAP, would organise, coordinate and manage a group of students to cascade peer support through the years. This would involve 4 mentors from each year mentoring students in the year below. 2nd yearUG Music Ind students Craig Hamilton Pg Student SAP Project Coordinator Music Industries Student Peer to Peer Mentoring SchemeMatt Grimes (staff) & Craig Hamilton (PG student/SAP)Faculty of Performance Media & English 3rd year UG Music Ind students Despite the issues already outlined the scheme was viewed as a largely positive development among the students involved and mot are keen to be involved on a more formal basis from September 2012 onwards. With the aid of the proposed Handbook, students can look forward to a more structured experience with the scheme.The poor response from 3rd Year students was somewhat disappointing, but nevertheless understandable given their workload. By the time the current 1st and 2nd years reach their final years it is my belief that they will have seen sufficient benefit from the scheme to be willing to continue their involvement right up until the completion of their studies.Feedback from the 1st and 2nd Year students involved suggested that it may be beneficial if the training sessions could be scheduled to take into account the student timetable. Of the dates proposed in this academic year, almost all clashed with lectures and other academic commitments. Despite the informal nature and stuttering start to the scheme, there has been a pleasing response from some students and of the 5 partnerships formed at least one of those developed into a fine working relationship that has included regular meetings and email contact with little or no prompting from either myself or Matt. Feedback from this pairing will greatly help inform the compilation of the student mentoring handbook for Music Industry specialists.The first draft of the handbook will be available in early July 2012 and any feedback will be most welcome. At the beginning of the academic year 2012-13 I will begin my recruitment drive using the completed handbook. Although Craig showed a solid level of commitment what seemed like a beneficial scheme, that had been informed by some student research and feedback, it was quite problematic to coordinate the students to get together for an initial meeting after responding to an e-mail request to volunteer for the scheme. This did finally happen although quite late into the semester where then student priorities shifted to their own work and assignment deadlines (MG) There were some successes in the scheme and some mentor/mentee relationships are going to continue. As a result of the original scheme not engaging all of the volunteers it was decided between MG and CH that what would be useful would be a student peer mentoring handbook/guide that would be disseminated to all music industry students notifying them of the new scheme that we hope to start in September 2012 where there will be more time over a period of a year to cement mentor/mentee relationships. This handbook will notify them of their commitment and responsibilities, mentor training available, benefits of the scheme and how to register. (MG & CH) The purpose of the project was for students to cascade peer support within a specialist pathway on the BA (Hons) Media and Communication Degree. As a result of the scheme and lessons learned the scheme will hopefully continue in September 2012. The idea being that as students moved up the year they would retain their mentor/mentee relationship. So as the 3rd year graduated and dropped off so a new set of 1st year students would fill the void from the bottom thus maintaining a constant flow of mentors/mentees (MG & CH)