Three Washington schools secure £250k for mentoring programme to boost pupil resilience
Programme will support pupils from Year 6 to Year 9 through a character education approach
Three Washington schools are expanding an innovative mentoring programme designed to help pupils build confidence, resilience and stronger social skills, thanks to more than £250,000 in funding from SHINE Sunderland.
The In-School Mentoring, Social Skills and Resilience Training programme has been awarded £251,092 to run from 2026 to 2029, supporting pupils from Year 6 to Year 9 through a character education approach delivered by ex-forces mentors from Commando Joe’s, a national provider of character education programmes.
The project will operate across Oxclose Community Academy and Washington Academy, as well as Barmston Village Primary School, helping pupils develop teamwork, leadership and emotional resilience through engaging “mission-based” sessions.
The funding will allow mentors to work in schools for three days per week, delivering one-to-one mentoring, small group sessions and whole-class activities designed to help pupils overcome barriers to learning.
The programme builds on a successful pilot delivered during 2025, which placed mentors in five Sunderland schools for one day a week. The pilot emerged from work linked to the Breathing Space project, which identified growing demand for support for pupils facing social, emotional and mental health challenges.
Schools quickly saw the impact of having a trusted adult mentor working directly with pupils.
Amanda Parkes, Headteacher at Oxclose Community Academy, said the pilot demonstrated how powerful the approach could be.
“What we found very quickly is that the children would engage with Commando Joe’s; they would come into school on the day they knew that the mentors were working with them,” she said.
“This meant that their attendance was improving, but also their resilience around challenges that they would face within their school day.”
Teachers also saw pupils becoming more open to support and more willing to re-engage with learning.
“They were more willing to engage in conversations and to be supported by staff in school, whereas previously they would often refuse to engage in ways to help them get back into the classroom,” Amanda added.
The programme uses the RESPECT framework developed by Commando Joe’s, combining mentoring with fun, practical “missions” inspired by values such as teamwork, discipline and leadership.
Mentors – many of whom have a military background – are not teachers or counsellors. Instead, they act as impartial adults who help pupils develop confidence, emotional regulation and communication skills.
With the expanded funding, mentors will now spend three days each week in participating schools, allowing them to build stronger relationships with pupils and provide more consistent support.
“What they are able to do is create more meaningful relationships with the young people because they can see them across the week at multiple times,” Parkes said.
“Children are also being able to have more of a coaching model where that can really unpick some of those challenges that they are facing.”
The goal is not for pupils to become dependent on mentors, but to develop skills they can apply independently.
“We don’t want them to become totally dependent on Commando Joe’s,” Amanda explained. “We want the children to be independent and apply those skills themselves.”
A key focus of the programme is supporting pupils during the often-challenging transition from primary to secondary school.
The project will work with pupils from Year 6 through to Year 8, helping identify those who may need additional support before they move schools. Mentors in primary and secondary schools will coordinate closely so that pupils experience continuity in support during the transition.
This joined-up approach aims to address common challenges such as anxiety, low confidence and friendship issues that can lead to poor attendance or behaviour difficulties.
While the programme will initially be delivered by external mentors, the ambition is to embed the model within schools themselves.
“Longer term, our aspirations would be that we have a member of staff in each school that we employ that can then be trained by Commando Joe’s and become a more sustainable figure within school,” Amanda said.
The funding comes from SHINE Sunderland’s wider £11 million education investment, one of the largest local education funds in the country. The initiative aims to boost the future prosperity of Sunderland by investing in better educational attainment at GCSE.
Amanda said the scale and long-term nature of the investment gives schools the chance to think differently about how they support pupils.
“It’s a superb opportunity and when you can see that something that you’ve trialled is going to have a huge impact, but you haven’t got the funds to sustain it and grow it, that’s really sad,” she said.
“To know that we’ve got this funding in place now for a really prolonged period of time that will allow us to develop our own model is so exciting.”
She added that the wider fund is helping schools collaborate and share ideas across the city.
“It allows you to think about things in a really creative way. It’s almost like having a dream shopping list and thinking about how you can do that and have the money there over a long period of time,” she said.
“It’s a fantastic opportunity and we are really, really excited to be part of that and think about where it can go to next.”