Tag: mentoring

Two small brown dogs walking on leads in a park

Could do better – and I did!

Author: | 19 Aug 2025

School can be a difficult experience for many people. Our Ambassador Lisa reflects on her schooldays, poor career guidance and how she found a way to focus on what she loves. As she says, if you need a degree, ‘reach for the moon’.

Could do better… sound familiar? My school reports were always full of ‘could do better’ remarks. A useless comment, leaving me wondering just how the hell I was supposed to do better! If I could do better, I would have done better.

School for me was horrible and I really did not want to be there, at all. The only subject I enjoyed was English as you got to read books and I’ve always been quite the bookworm. The rest, though, seemed pointless. Remember trigonometry? If you are standing in a boat and looking up at a 250-metre cliff, what is the angle you are looking up at? If I was ever in a boat looking up at a cliff, I definitely wouldn’t be worrying about the angle. I’d more likely be frantically waving my arms around and screaming for help.

I thought education wasn’t for me

I remember asking the teacher, ‘why do I need to learn this?’ Her answer: ‘It’s in the curriculum’. So, I asked, ‘what job would I need trigonometry for?’ only to be told, ‘stop messing around and get on with your work’.

I despised hockey and gym. Loathed computer science. Couldn’t understand physics… I think you get the picture. I also had a tendency to mess around in class – setting the gas taps in the physics lab alight (without a Bunsen burner attached) or liberating the frogs from the biology lab, or hiding in the suspended ceiling – only to come crashing down in the middle of the lesson.

I left school after my GCSEs, only scraping passes. The careers advisor, back in those days, was useless. When asked what I enjoyed doing, I replied, ‘I love training and being with my dog’. She promptly stated that I ‘couldn’t play with dogs as a job’ and told me to be either a nurse (no way, I hate the sight of blood), a teacher (I hate school!) or work in a bank but I needed to go and do an OND in Business and Finance.

So, off to college I went, obtaining a Merit for my efforts. At the urging of my family, I continued on to do an HND in Business and Finance, this time a Distinction. College life suited me far better than school, with better learning support and continuous assessments through assignments, rather than focusing on exams.

What next after prison?

During my time in prison, I started thinking about what to do upon release, seeing as I couldn’t and didn’t want to return to the job I had. While working full-time as a single mum, I somehow found time to follow my childhood dream and became a qualified dog trainer. On reflecting, I realised how happy I was during moments of teaching at dog training classes. I decided to build on this.

It was, after all, what I should have done all those years after my GCSEs. As a dog trainer, I remembered how people would ask me questions that crossed from training into the realm of dog behaviour. I was also fascinated by the head trainer who ran courses for reactive dogs with real tangible results.

Now I have just passed the second year of my degree in Animal Behaviour and Welfare with the support of the Longford Trust. I am aiming to become a Clinical Animal Behaviourist, helping owners with naughty pets. I’m doing really well, too, with grades that are higher than anything I ever gained in school. The support I’ve received as a mature student going back into learning has been incredible, with tutors on hand to offer academic guidance on how to get to grips with new technologies to help you learn.

The Longford mentoring has been invaluable to me. My mentor Andrew has been able to give me advice and guidance on tackling everything from university study to setting up my business and scaling it to fit in with my studies. I feel that having a mentor means I am accountable to someone which has helped to keep me focused and reaching my goals.

The takeaway from my story is this… if you enjoy something, then the learning becomes easy and enjoyable. So have a think about what you enjoy, and then look what qualifications you need. If you need a degree, then reach for the moon and, even if you fall short, you’ll end up among the stars.

Want to study for a degree but need some financial and mentoring support after leaving prison? Take a look at our Scholarships and Awards page.

How education gave me a second chance

Author: | 24 Mar 2023

Excluded from school for being disruptive Neil had no interest in education when he was sent to prison. But slowly he caught the learning bug and now has a degree to his name.  For Longford Blog he describes how, with our backing, he landed his dream job in prison reform.

 

The letters A,B,C,D are probably the most important determination of a teenager’s future, the higher the letter, the better their chances of carving out a successful career. Unfortunately for me, instead of getting a GCSE grade, I received a different sort of B – I was sent to a Category B prison.

 

Even if I’d stayed at school I probably wouldn’t have passed any of my exams. I had no enthusiasm for education, was disruptive and an all-round nuisance for the teachers who passionately gave up their time despite my antics. Looking back, this was even more depressing as I actually had an ability to achieve: I started out in all the top sets but found myself in the lower tiers because of my behaviour.

 

I was suspended and subsequently permanently expelled. A gaping hole in my personal development and a lack of structure left me destined for failure. And I became the ultimate failure, committed an horrendous crime and – rightly so -received a custodial sentence for longer than I had been alive.

 

Getting back on track

 

Spending time in the juvenile prison estate meant that I was faced with my arch nemesis again – education. True to fashion, I wasn’t interested, had zero motivation to learn, and attended just to get out of my cell. Now, 16 years on, I have a degree with first-class honours, am halfway through an MA in Crime and Justice, and I already have a blueprint for a possible PhD.

 

So how did I get hooked on education? In prison there is a requirement to complete Maths and English to an adequate level. For me this was boring but essential. Once you have completed the foundations, other courses become available. After spending four years passing English and Maths, I was invited to study Sociology at GCSE level. At this point I was more mature and enjoyed my tutor using the Sociology syllabus to help me understand how society works. As well as a qualification, I was learning about myself and how I had found myself in prison.

 

Getting motivated

 

I guess when there is an intrinsic motivation you are more committed to learn. As time went on, I was excited by study. I even washed the sleep out of my eyes to ensure I was bright and early for class. As well as attending lessons, I would pull out the books on a night-time and indulge in reading stuff outside the syllabus.

 

I stuck at it and achieved a respectable grade B. I had caught the education bug. With the same inspirational teacher, I next completed 7 more GCSEs. Then my tutor suggested I start higher education at The Open University.

 

Distance Learning and Student Loans

 

I continued with the Social Sciences, took advantage of a student loan to pay for my OU module costs and dedicated my time to learning. After navigating the prison system’s distance learning troubles, I graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Social Sciences. I was ready to stop there. I was already anxious about release and didn’t want to incur any more debts through student finance.

 

Fortunately, I was responsible for helping other prisoners choose higher education opportunities and was made aware by my peers of what The Longford Trust offers. I noticed the energy and positivity among those who were on a Longford Scholarship and I wanted in! I applied and, to my delight, they awarded me three years of funding towards an MA in Crime and Justice.

 

A scholarship that goes beyond money

 

Once I had been accepted, the Trust’s director came to meet me in prison, explained that the scholarship is more than paying for tuition fees, and talked to me about finding a suitable mentor. Over and above the financial aspect of the scholarship, one of the key advantages it provides is having one of the Trust’s trained mentors to support you one-to-one.

 

I have now been in the community for twelve months and The Longford Trust has shared my resettlement journey with me. As well as getting my studies transferred smoothly from prison to community, they have offered me professional advice and a helping hand whenever I need it. So much so that they helped me land my dream job of helping fight for fairer outcomes in the criminal justice system. My rehabilitation journey would look incredibly different without them.

 

If you feel inspired by Neil’s story and would like to apply for a Longford Scholarship, contact Clare Lewis for details or an application form, or write to her at Freepost, Longford Trust (you don’t need a stamp)