Peer coaching sessions booked through Fortress this school year have already reached a record high. The number has surpassed 550 in the first semester alone, more than the number booked throughout the whole 2024-2025 school year.
English teacher and Writing Center Instructor Maura Sincoff believes that the spike in sessions is a result of more teachers encouraging students to utilize peer tutoring as a resource, an initiative the Writing Center has also advocated for.
According to Academic Coordinator and Learning Center Co-Lead Lily Lam, English and history were the most common subjects peer tutored, with English facilitated by the Writing Center. Lam noted that the record number is partly due to the Learning Center’s continued initiative to establish peer tutoring as part of Menlo students’ everyday academic experience.
Since the height of the pandemic, Lam and the rest of the Learning Center Team have worked to expand opportunities for structured peer tutoring. Previously, peer tutoring was not a school-sponsored program, so if a student needed support, Lam would reach out to teachers to recommend a student who could help to establish a lasting system and encourage consistency.
Freshman Anya Simard finds the Fortress peer coaching system and the Writing Center to be a good resource, as oftentimes her teachers are busy with other students.
“It’s easier to communicate with a peer than it is [with] a teacher, because it feels less like you have to be less formal. Just having somebody to run my ideas by is helpful because they can help [me] refine them and point out things I might not have noticed,” she said.
Junior and Writing Center Logistics Lead Celina Chen said she’s seen the student culture shift around peer coaching. “I remember my freshman year, no one really asked a tutor for help. But now, in my sophomore year and my junior year, almost every single person has gone to at least one coach to look over their essay,” Chen said.
Lam agrees that the peer tutoring system has been working well. “I really want [students] to stay committed to offering the sessions. I think one way is to match individual students up so that they can have an ongoing relationship,” Lam said.
In the fall of 2023, they launched Menlo Fortress, a platform where peer tutors can publish their availability and any student seeking support can book a one-on-one session. “We [wanted] to make it accessible to everybody, not just on a case-by-case basis,” Lam said.
Since the launch of Fortress, Lam has made announcements at grade level class meetings and talked to teachers in each department to encourage students to peer tutor, book sessions and spread the word among other initiatives. “The word is out on how helpful peers are in helping the freshmen and the sophomores get better at writing. And it’s so cool to see how they’re just sort of naturally evolving into asking each other,” Sincoff said.
Sincoff believes it’s crucial to keep the Writing Center’s leadership team and club members motivated. The Writing Center has around 50 club members, and students with the most hours earn certificates, gift cards and home-made treats for their contributions.
This year, the leadership team has decided to start cutting members who don’t consistently log their hours or attend meetings. “We made it very clear that we want to hold our club members up to a certain standard, like a certain [number of] hours or requirements to go to a certain number of meetings, [which] has been really beneficial,” Chen said.
Both Chen and Sincoff will ensure Writing Center Members are contributing to the community, not just being part of the organization in name. “We’ve had situations where teachers ask [club members for help, and] the people who say they’re going to show up don’t show up at all. […] It’s better to have boundaries around the responsibilities,” Sincoff said.
