Laurence has been a learning mentor with Future Foundations since 2017, supporting children through the Early Years Help Club and one-to-one remote mentoring.
“Kids haven’t changed as much as you might think.”
I come from a family of teachers, though I didn’t go into teaching professionally. I’m a journalist. Language has always been something I’ve been drawn to, and when the opportunity came to volunteer with Future Foundations, I was keen to see how I could help young children develop their language skills. I also wanted to be honest with myself: I wanted to get better at teaching maths, because it wasn’t my strong point at school. Volunteering gave me the chance to do both.
I started with older students, helping with homework and GCSE subjects. I even ended up taking GCSE chemistry myself because I wanted to be able to help. When you can explain something clearly, you both benefit. That worked much better than I expected.
In recent years, I’ve been part of the Early Years Help Club, which we helped set up. We work with children aged four to seven, meeting at a local college for one-to-one sessions within a group setting. We have colouring books, counters, puzzles, flashcards, dominoes. Games are a big part of it. The children often come with homework, usually simple picture stories or number work, and we go through those together. But we try to make it feel different from school, a bit more relaxed. They can go at their own pace. That doesn’t mean it’s an easy ride. They learn a lot.
One of the things I’ve really noticed is how often children need to slow down. A four-year-old I work with is learning pen control at the moment. That means working on colouring carefully, staying inside the lines, not rushing. It sounds simple, but it feeds into everything. Writing numerals. Tracing letters. It all connects. And every child is different, even at that age. You discover that very quickly in one-to-one work.
I also play guitar, and we sing. Old MacDonald, Heads Shoulders Knees and Toes, songs that get them moving. A lot of people assume children today only want screens. But the simple things still work really well. Picture books, songs, colouring. Kids haven’t changed as much as you might think.
I didn’t know how dominoes would go with a four-year-old. He won more games than I did.
I also do remote mentoring with a ten-year-old, once a week online. When we started, he was quite hesitant reading English. He’s much more fluent now. During one session we were reading Robinson Crusoe, and I asked him what he thought you’d absolutely need to survive on a desert island. The first thing he said was a friend. I thought that was a beautiful answer. You could have a pet, like Robinson Crusoe’s parrot, but the instinct he had was for company. That kind of response stays with you.
It’s the intelligence and the creativity of the children that surprises me most. In another session, he told me he’d created a computer game at school. He’s ten. I asked him to explain how he did it, because it’s not something I can do. He walked me through the whole thing. Times change, and children are doing remarkable things.