Welcome to Peer Support News. We hope you’ve had a great summer!
A big thank you for volunteering to be part of the huge Peer Mentoring and Peer Assisted Learning (PAL) community at the University of Bath.
As the Peer Support community is growing, we want to share all the great peer support you are giving each other and keep you updated with new and exciting upcoming opportunities to get more involved.
Looking back
Summer was busy with lots of positive feedback and introductions of exciting new PAL schemes.
English PAL took place over the summer with very positive feedback and high attendance. English PAL helps students studying on the pre-sessional English course to improve their confidence and learn about UK culture from home students and previous pre-sessional students. A huge thank you to the PAL Leaders who made this scheme a success.
English PAL continues to run this academic year and we’re still looking for new PAL Leaders to run the sessions. Find out more and apply for the role here. The deadline for applications is 15th October at 10am.
Recruitment for new Peer Mentors for the Placement Peer Mentoring and Postgraduate Peer Support schemes has also taken place this summer. Thank you to all those existing mentors who have signed up for a second or even third year running. You are truly dedicated to the peer support cause!
We have also started working with students and staff in the Department of Biology and Biochemistry and the School of Management, the Centre for Digital Entertainment (CDE) and Advanced Automotive Propulsions System (AAPS) to provide mentors for new doctoral students in these departments.
Undergraduate peer mentors across all the faculties have done an amazing job welcoming first year students to the University and are now helping them settle into life at Bath.
Here are some photos of the fantastic welcoming peer mentoring events that have taken place over Fresher’s Week and Week 1.
Email peersupport@bath.ac.uk if you have a success story you would like us to share with the peer support community. Remember if you are running a peer mentoring event or PAL session, take some photos or video and send them on to us. We would love to share these too.
Looking forward
PAL leaders
PAL sessions will be starting this week for a number of different departments. Best of luck to everyone in their first sessions. We are also introducing a new PAL scheme in Economics and an additional scheme in Computer Science and we are very excited to see what the PAL Leaders achieve in these schemes.
Introducing Student Trainers
Welcome to the new cohort of Student Trainers, who are now working with the Peer Support Team. They have been busy planning training opportunities to all students, with lots of exciting upcoming workshops focused on employability and personal development skills.
All of our volunteers are welcome to sign up to the featured Student Trainer peer led sessions to build and develop a variety of skills in a supportive environment. Find out more about the sessions available here.
Volunteer of the month
Each month we are going to name a Peer Support volunteer or group of volunteers who have gone above and beyond, deserving some extra recognition for their efforts!
If you would like to nominate a volunteer or group of volunteers for our first award, you can do so by emailing peersupport@bath.ac.uk before 25 October stating your nominee(s) and why you think they deserve recognition.
Have a great October!