Rector’s eNews 27: 3 September 2025

I wonder how many parents and Old Boys can look back on their lives and identify someone who was a significant mentor and knowingly or otherwise guided them at key moments. Such a person might have been a mentor in a formal sense or, alternatively, someone to whom they simply looked up and for whom they had admiration because of the example he or she set. For them very often such mentors will have been or are in the same profession or field of interest or business or activity or sport or may simply have been a family friend. He/she may have helped in decision-making or helping a younger person to understand a new situation; whatever the nature of the relationship, mentors have generally been beacons in unchartered waters.

Transferring the concept of mentorship into the school environment, the cop-cack system has long been part of the modus operandi of Michaelhouse and has increasingly become a mentorship programme which begins when the E Blocker comes across the threshold on his first day in a uniform that is usually too big for him and is helped by his prefect to carry his trunk up to his dorm. Taking the concept of mentorship forwards, over the past couple of years we have appreciated the value in helping our A Blockers, several of whom have been mentors as prefects, on to the next stage of their lives – often in a university setting in this country, but sometimes elsewhere. It often takes time for a new idea to take root and for people to see the value in it, but an initiative developed by the Old Boys’ Club in tandem with the school has been to establish a mentorship programme to support each of our boys as they prepare for life beyond Michaelhouse.

Over the past two years, this has been trialled with an increasing degree of success as its value has come to be appreciated, particularly when a mentor has done or is doing the same or a similar degree or has engaged in a 27similar activity to the departing matriculant.

Earlier this year, the Old Boys’ Club, through the energy of Mr Ron Rutland, Director of the Old Boys’ Club, put before our 127 A Block boys, a survey concerning their plans and aspirations for 2026 and the future. Among the questions asked was, “How valuable do you think a mentor could be in helping you navigate life after school?” Their responses were:

• extremely valuable: 82
• somewhat valuable: 37
• neutral: 8
• no real value: 0

This overwhelming response speaks volumes about the fact that our young men are entering an uncertain world, but also about the culture of brotherhood and support nurtured at Michaelhouse and also the fact that Michaelhouse boys are on a lifelong journey from the very day when they arrive with their trunk and are helped by their cop to take it up to the dorm.

Drawing from a pool of over 300 keen Old Boys, largely from the classes of 2010 to 2020, the Old Boys’ Club set out to pair each of the 127 respondents with a mentor. Using a custom-built matching engine supported by AI tools (and plenty of human review), matches were scored and aligned on the basis of:

field of intended study, career or business interests, preferred cities or countries for further study, gap years or working arrangements, stated areas of mentorship needed and shared House where no other overlap existed.

It is exciting to be able to record that each mentee has now been introduced to his mentor and encouraged to take the first step in building a relationship that could shape the next phase of his life. We recognise that not every pairing will be perfect and there are more mentors standing by should any boy wish to be re-matched. But this programme, itself, stands as a beacon of what the Old Boys’ Club and the greater Michaelhouse community is capable of when it lives out its purpose, which is to be useful, connected and generous across generations.

So we are hoping that your son, when he leaves A Block, will reach out to his mentor, embrace the opportunity and become part of something bigger. As part of the Old Boys’ Club’s “Club for Life” philosophy, the next phase is to develop a more intentional link between the 127 Old Boys who are to be mentors to the departing A Block and those who are very well established in professional or other fields so that the notion of mentorship can be carried on down through the generations and fulfil the philosophy underpinning the brotherhood of Michaelhouse boys across generations.

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