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European School Education Platform
Resource

Sports Students as Mentors for Boys and Young Men (SSaMs)

The SSaMs project aimed to improve boys’ and young men’s educational attainment and prevent early school leaving via gender-sensitive mentoring and sports. The rationale of the Erasmus+ programme was that many sports personnel already provide mentoring to boys around health and social issues but lack training to do so effectively.
SSaMs project logo

The project partners collaborated to develop a higher education course to enhance the knowledge and skills of undergraduate sports students. The course content was based on existing training materials developed by Mengage. These students would then apply their learning in vocational settings to provide effective mentoring support to young males who are underachieving at school and at risk of ESL. This approach is to motivate young men to stay at school and improve their educational attainment/outcomes.

The project increased skills and knowledge (and employability) of sport students trained in gender-sensitive mentoring and supported the engagement of the higher education institute with local communities, organisations and schools in the six project countries.

The project results include learning materials for students and materials for lecturers, in five languages. 

Further reading

Additional information

  • Education type:
    School Education
    Vocational Education and Training
  • Evidence:
    N/A
  • Funding source:
    European Funding
  • Intervention level:
    Targeted
  • Intervention intensity:
    Periodic
  • Participating countries:
    Czechia
    Greece
    Ireland
    Italy
    Spain
    United Kingdom
  • Target audience:
    Head Teacher / Principal
    Higher education institution staff
    Student Teacher
    Teacher
    Teacher Educator
  • Target audience ISCED:
    Lower secondary education (ISCED 2)
    Upper secondary education (ISCED 3)