The Vyne and AWE (Supporting national nuclear security and a centre of scientific and technological excellence based in Tadley) have been part of a mentoring programme for 5 years. It targets year 10 students primarily to support students who would like and need additional support with Science and or Maths. This year the half an hour sessions take place once per fortnight during the students PE lessons and involved subject specific sessions as well as personal guidance.

If you're a graduate and want to complete your training in a school environment, consider school-centred initial teacher training (SCITT). The Basingstoke Alliance SCITT delivers Initial Teacher Training programmes which have been designed and are delivered by groups of schools and colleges within Basingstoke and Deane situated in North Hampshire. The programmes are taught by experienced, practising teachers, and are tailored towards our local teaching needs. All our courses lead to qualified teacher status (QTS). 

If you prefer to spend more time training in the classroom, putting theory into practice and gaining confidence through increased contact with the school environment, then a Basingstoke Alliance SCITT programme is a good option for you.

If you are interested in gaining school based experience prior to applying for a teacher training course The Vyne School runs a School Experience Programme with the Department for Education. For further information either contact Sara Kemp, Assistant Headteacher directly at The Vyne School or visit http://www.education.gov.uk/get-into-teaching/school-experience/sep

Over the years the Basingstoke Consortium has worked with The Vyne School on a variety of work related learning projects including: organising work experience for their students, employability skills workshops, career days, employer visits, enterprise challenges and business mentoring.

This year, we are working closely with the school and Unum, a local financial services business, to provide business mentors to help support some of their Year 9 students. 

We are also organising two mock interview days for Year 9 students, and a skills day which will focus on the general employability skills needed in the workplace.

Year 10 and 11 students also take part in the Consortium’s financial capability package ‘Money Matters’. Money Matters is a practical programme that is delivered in three one hour sessions and aims to give students a better understanding of budgeting and ways to save.

Basingstoke Consortium is a charity that works with young people, helping to give them the motivation, self-confidence, attitudes and skills for adult life.

We provide practical opportunities for them to experience the world of work which are designed to inspire tomorrow's workforce. We have worked with business, education and the local community for 30 years, and have a strong track record in developing innovative programmes and sustainable partnerships.

The Vyne has had a long standing relationship with Basingstoke Young Carers and work closely in helping those students who need support and guidance. 

A Young Carer is defined as a child or young person who is undertaking a caring role for a family member with a terminal/long term illness or disability. This also includes hard-to-reach children and young people who are affected by their parent's behaviour through drug & alcohol abuse, mental health problems or domestic violence.

Educate & Celebrate have been working with the Vyne over the past year and is an Ofsted recognised teacher training and resource programme that gives staff, students, parents and governors the confidence and strategies to implement an LGBT+Inclusive curriculum to successfully eradicate homophobia, biphobia and transphobia from our schools and communities.

Focusing on 5 core areas, the best practice programme invites teachers, students, parents and governors to partake in whole school change through training, policy, curriculum, community and environment giving opportunities to reflect upon their experiences. 

Zitta is an experienced teacher and works for Educate & Celebrate and has been working with a groups of students interested in raising the profile of LGBT issues and promoting equal rights for all minority groups. The students have formed a group called 'Vyne Pride' and are working towards a whole school assembly. They are aiming to create posters for display and use The Vyne social media to put across their message. One example of this is to use the Vyne radio to play a week of LGBT inspired music. They would like to take part in the Educate and Celebrate showcase, later in February, which involves schools from around the country showing what they have done to raise awareness of LGBT issues

The Vyne School and Fujitsu have developed a superb partnership over the last 9 years. Fujitsu support the Vyne School through a number of defined interventions: 

• Help inspire, build confidence and develop young talent

• Develop student attainment & achievement 

• Promote awareness of STEM careers 

• Support Equality & Diversity 

• Promote Females in IT & Engineering 

• Provides business awareness, best practices & skills that prepare students for life ‘after’ academia 

• Support Students in their career aspirations through targeted interventions to help develop and enrichment

Fujitsu and The Vyne mission statement 

Fyffes has been bringing bananas to Britain since 1888 and from our Ripening Centre in Basingstoke we now supply the south of England with Fyffes branded bananas and Supersweet Pineapples. We don’t own farms but prefer to work with local growers as a partner and this has helped us to become Europe’s largest Fairtrade banana importer. Our focus on community can also be seen closer to home where we support schools and local community projects. We’re delighted to be working with Vyne Community School, providing them with bananas for their breakfast club and break times.

This is the first time we have been involved in this mentoring programme, it is being funded by Level 3 (Tele-communications network company based in Chineham) and is focussed on allowing disadvantaged and under achieving girls in year 11 to see and reach their full potential. It matches professional female mentors from Level 3 to our handpicked students. The mentors and their mentees then meet outside of school time, usually once a week for the whole academic year. With a focus on finding common ground, career aspirations and pathways, college choices and applications as well as personal guidance if needed. This support is aimed to continue through-out post 16 and beyond.

Over a period of 2 years The Vyne has worked closely with Ocean Youth Trust, with nearly 30 students involved in 4 Vyne Sailing voyages.

Ocean Youth Trust South is charity which uses Adventure under Sail as a personal development opportunity for young people aged 12-25, taking them to sea in their 72-foot yacht John Laing.

OYT sail with around 450 young people each year. Roughly two-thirds will be disadvantaged or vulnerable in some way: they work in partnership with other organisations both to select these young people and also to ensure that lessons learned and achievements enjoyed on a voyage are carried through into a long-term programme of work with each young person. 

For all these young people, a voyage is designed to develop confidence, team-working, ability to cope with unfamiliar situations, and tolerance and understanding of others. Young crew members not only sail the boat, keep watch and help to navigate; they also learn basic life skills such as cooking and healthy eating. Sail training brings benefits to all sorts of young people, perhaps their lives are dominated by television and computer games and they really need an active outdoor adventure.

Colleagues at Sainsbury’s Kempshott enjoy the many varied activities, volunteering in your community affords them. Our work with the Vyne School has seen colleagues regularly attend the Summer School activities with the cake decorating sessions always proving a winner with the pupils. We also work closely with extending our value to Waste Less, Save More by donating our left over bread and pastries for use at the school breakfast clubs.

This programme has been facilitated for the school by The Basingstoke Consortium. It sees us working in partnership with Unum, a financial services company based nearby. 

Unum staff volunteer to act as mentors on a 1:1 basis with selected students in Y9. The selection criteria was rigorous and focussed on information from tutors regarding their knowledge of their tutees. The students chosen for this programme was based on students who we felt needed a confidence boost to allow them to see their true potential.

There are currently 10 mentor/mentee pairings. The intention is that this relationship will continue for the duration of the students’ time with us (in other schools some mentor/mentee relationships have continued on into the student’s time at college).

The overarching aim of the business mentoring program is to provide our students with an adult to support them who is neither a parent nor a teacher, and to act as role models. The mentor will have experience of the world of training, work and commerce. By sharing their past endeavours, mistakes and successes with the mentee, mentors support students as they progress, in areas including subject revision, raising aspirations, getting back on track, and developing communication and planning skills. 

Mentors and mentees typically meet for half an hour once a fortnight or month. The mentors have received training from a practising learning mentor, have an enhanced DBS check and are supported throughout the programme by the Consortium and the school's mentoring co-ordinator.

This is the second time XL Mentoring has been used within The Vyne. The mentoring programme is family orientated and aims to provide an additional person to guide and support the chosen students in areas identified through developing confidence and aspirations. There is an initial meeting of the mentor, mentee and family at a pre-arranged induction meeting where the co-ordinator introduces the process to the student and their family before the weekly mentor sessions begin.