Partnerships Update, February 2021

Colet Mentoring

Colet Mentoring, a first-of-its-kind peer learning app that allows students to learn from and support one another, launched on 20 January 2021. Through Colet Mentoring, students are learning safely from each other right from their smartphones. Pioneered by St Paul’s School and London-based EdTech start-up, EasyA founded by two alumni of St Paul’s School, the app allows students to snap a photo of their question and get instant STEM help from a peer mentor.

Students learn via a combination of messages, pictures and virtual whiteboard with the lightweight, low-data format making the help accessible to most students, including those who have limited internet connections that don’t permit video sessions. The app is completely free for all students involved, with the innovative platform paving the way for a new model of highly scalable, 1:1 mentoring that promises to help students catch up and get ahead this lockdown and beyond. Read more here.

Lower Eighth Covid-19 Vaccine Volunteering

Well done to Lower Eighth students, Matt Smith, Liam Corcoran and Senan Bottomley for volunteering and helping with the vaccine roll out in Barnes over the Christmas holidays. Read Matt Smith’s full report below.

Over the Christmas holidays, I volunteered at the Essex House Surgery (the local GP in Barnes) to help with the initial rollout of the Covid-19 vaccine for the over 80s. I was joined by Senan Bottomley and Liam Corcoran from St Paul’s and volunteers from the local community. I was given several different tasks to help make the process as friendly, smooth and efficient as possible. My main roles were to assist the elderly being vaccinated into the surgery and to support them, including by serving hundreds of cups of tea, as they waited during their 15-minute observation period after the vaccination.

I had numerous interesting experiences. While waiting with a woman in the observation room, I witnessed a 90-year-old practising her ballroom dancing and doing yoga, which was surprising. However, the most memorable take-away for me was talking to the elderly as they told stories of their lives. I was particularly moved by a conversation with an Old Pauline who attended the school in the early 1950s and is still proud to this day to be part of C Club.

The experience of helping elderly people was extremely rewarding, as I was able to engage closely with them while still keeping a safe distance. My interactions were unforgettable and surprising, with the over 80s having an overwhelmingly positive outlook about the COVID situation and the future, notwithstanding the hardships they had been through in the last nine months. A testament to their generation and the strength of the human spirit.

West London Partnership Logo Competition

In November, the West London Partnership launched a competition for pupils to design their new logo.

All designs were sent to the West London Partnership for the overall judging and Fifth Form pupil, Muhammad Hasan’s logo was chosen from over 40 entries from nine partner schools as the ultimate winning logo.

Congratulations to everyone who created a logo, and to Muhammad especially whose logo will now become the official emblem of the West London Partnership.

There were over 15 logo designs submitted from St Paul’s and a winner from each year group has been chosen by an independent judging panel.

The winning logos can be found here.

The West London Partnership is an association of secondary schools from both the independent and state sectors in West and South West London. The overarching aims and aspirations are to create a genuine partnership built on sustainable, collaborative projects where schools and other institutions work together, sharing resources and expertise, to address educational needs and to enrich learning for everyone.