Student Success Mentor (St Stithians Online School)
Valenture Institute (Pty) Ltd, South Africa
Job Description
Our Student Success Mentors are passionate individuals who are deeply committed to helping our students succeed in their High School experience, and are the frontline custodians of the learning experience and the Valenture Institute brand. Dedicated Student Success Mentors are responsible for providing premium, personalised support and solutions to students and their parents on a range of High School qualifications, building a one-to-one meaningful relationship, with a primary focus on exceptional mentoring strategies, customer experience and retention.
Student Mentoring amp; Support:
- Offer high-quality and consistent mentoring support to students in accordance with the strategies defined by the Student Success team.
- Work closely with the Student Success Lead/Head, Student Success team and Faculty to ensure delivery of a holistic, high-quality learning experience.
- Take ownership of the role as the primary point of contact for students and their parents during the learning experience.
- Be deeply committed to the responsibility for duty of care related to the role, and strictly uphold and abide by all policies and procedures.
- Be committed to providing excellent support to both students and their parents at all times.
- Provide prompt, effective support and personalised communication to student and parent queries via email, phone, and on the Online Campus.
- Utilise an in-depth understanding of the technical functions of the Online Campus to guide a student in navigating their learning path and, where necessary, have basic knowledge on how to troubleshoot technical problems.
- Provide an assessment of critical situations and determine when escalation is required to internal teams via pre-defined channels and follow up to ensure resolution.
- Monitor and update data reports and student tracking sheets.
- Host group sessions with students (including Home Room sessions and Learning Compass Sessions).
- Develop and update individual student growth plans on a weekly basis.
- Proactively alert the Educational Psychologist to potential psychological issues/barriers (referrals process).
- Occasionally visit the Saint Stithians physical campus.
Qualification Delivery
- Employ creative thinking and problem solving techniques to provide qualification administrative support. Which includes, but is not limited to: extension, suspension, deferral, and cancellation request as well as queries related to fees, student records, examinations, recognition.
- Collaborate regularly with team members of the Faculty and Product divisions to ensure the optimal delivery of the learning experience for students and their parents.
- Self-manage workload through the use of data and metrics to drive efficiency in order to meet defined KPIs and participate in regular qualitative coaching and development feedback.
- Remain up-to-date on departmental processes and resolution procedures through ongoing training and development
Retention:
A key success metric for the Student Success team is the successful retention of students. This is achieved through the delivery of an exceptional learning experience underpinned by quality mentoring. Where students are encountering challenges in this regard the Student Success Mentor is required to work with students, and their parents, to create personalised remediation and support plans in collaboration with the relevant Faculty team members.
Realities of the role:
- Valenture Institute is a fast-paced startup. We are not a traditional school! We are reimagining schooling and precedent needs to be adopted only where it has proven to have great results. If you think that traditional schools have it all figured out, this is probably not the right role for you.
- Collaboration is the name of the game. We operate in highly specialised teams, and our ability to deliver an excellent student experience is premised on our team’s ability to collaborate, value the contributions of their teammates (including those in other teams) and see the value in the rubbing of minds. If you do not find value in having your ideas interrogated or others weighing in on how things could foreseeably be done, you are unlikely to enjoy the role. Similarly, if you are not comfortable with other teams being accountable for different parts of the learning experience, you are unlikely to find this environment to be a good fit for you.
- The Student Success team are master multitaskers. They enjoy the pace and variety of parent and student engagements, coaching groups, monitoring multiple data points, updating student progress monitoring resources, collaborating with teams, dealing with special cases, and working on multiple systems all in a day’s work! If y