Mentoring the Mentors within the IB PYP Exhibition

Within the IB PYP Exhibition, your team of mentors are a crucial support tool for students and facilitators alike. They are often a mixture of other staff members ( teachers, support staff ), members of the local community and parents. Many mentors are coming to the Exhibition for the first time. And, even if it isn’t their first time, its so important to ensure right from the very beginning, that everyone is on the same page. Mentoring your mentors is one key to making the journey  a smoother one.  I have a couple of GREAT tools to help! In this article, you will find a fantastic video, a free guide and my best-selling Exhibition journal. If this is your first journey through the PYP Exhibition, make sure you grab your FREE timeline here.

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Within my student journal, Journey Through the PYP Exhibition, you will find ideas for mentors as well as clarifying with students, how a mentor can support them throughout their Exhibition journey. You can get a better idea of the journal in this article.   The Role of the Mentor:  Mentors are a valuable resource for helping to guide the students through the process of this important project. They offer their time, often their expertise and dedication to our students. As a lead facilitator, you will greatly appreciate the extra hands, so to speak. Responsibility: They will be working closely with the teacher as well as being aware of their role with their student groups.  As the group’s mentor, they will be required to meet with the children at least 1x a week and will help to keep them on track with their assignments as they work through the process of the Exhibition. Students need some guidance, advice and support with their investigation, gathering of sources and perhaps field trips or interviews. Assisting them with discussions and evaluation of their progress will be invaluable as they strive to work collaboratively throughout this project. It is so important that our mentors understand that this is a child-led project and that their role is one of support, very important support for the children. Often, in their enthusiasm, mentors can take over some of the students’ work, getting over zealous with leading the ideas for the students. We, as lead facilitators, need to clarify the roles and their responsibilities. The reflection process is on-going throughout the Exhibition and often mediated by mentors. Giving the mentors an understanding of our reflective thinking process and what we are reflecting upon, helps them to guide the children through self-reflection, peer reflection and group reflections too.

Community Highlight: Dalia El Shorbagy, an experienced grade 5 PYP teacher from Cairo, Egypt, shared her strategies in one my LIVE Facebook sessions. It is always so valuable for us, as teachers, to be able to peek into how our colleagues are working through the framework. Dalia’s experiences shines with great ideas! Dalia is an active member of our Instagram community @daliaelshorbagy . I invite you to watch this fabulous presentation in the video below.

I am always so grateful for our international community sharing and collaborating with me to bring these insights to you, wherever you are on your PYP journey and wherever you are in the world. Enjoy!

P.S. Come and join in with our community on Instagram! I'd love you to introduce yourself. Find me @pypteaching