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Annex 5: School Case Studies

5.1 School A

Background

School A was a city centre school, with 978 pupils on its roll. It had been operating a peer education scheme for four years, through its city council peer education project. The scheme involved pupils from S2 visiting cluster primary schools and working with the P7 pupils in a drug and alcohol education programme. The S2 peer educators were chosen each year, at the end of S1. There was keen competition to become a peer educator - out of 150 possible candidates, 25 were selected.

Peer educators were given training, as were the pupils from another secondary school in the city, where the same scheme was adopted. This training involved attendance at initial sessions, followed up by a residential weekend.

The scheme itself involved the S2 pupils visiting P7 pupils over 12 weeks (two lots of six-week visits). The peer educators also committed to attending 25 training/bonding sessions, each Wednesday afternoon, at their school, between 3.30 and 5.00pm.

The RSO for the area had nominated the school as a possible candidate for inclusion in the research. The rector of the school was contacted and gave his agreement to the school's participation. Arrangements were then made through the assistant rector and her colleague in the Peer Education programme. A researcher visited the school to meet with the assistant rector and her Peer Education counterpart, in order to discuss the research, and the history and operation of the Peer Education scheme. A second visit was made to the school to meet with the peer educators themselves. On this second visit, an S3 pupil who had been involved in Work Experience with the Peer Education project was helping in an evaluation of the scheme, which involved interviewing some peer educators and recording them using a video camera. The researcher was allowed to sit in on these interviews. She also met with four senior pupils who had been peer educators and maintained informal links with the pupils with whom they had worked.

It was not possible to meet with any of the P7 pupils who had been exposed to the Peer Education programme, but further information was obtained from the Peer Education project, in a separate visit. Letters from P7 pupils who had been peer educated were shown to the researcher. They were letters of thanks to their peer educators, and all of the letters recorded a high level of P7 pupil interest in, and benefit from, the process of peer education.

Peer Education experience

Teaching Staff

An interview was held with the Assistant Rector of School A. She co-ordinated the peer education scheme but had no "hands-on" involvement with the day-to-day running.

Strengths of scheme

The interviewee saw only strengths in the peer education project. Her dealings were with only the peer educators and she outlined the benefits below:

• Pupils developing in confidence and maturity.
• Development of pupil awareness of risk and unsafe behaviours that were transferable to other areas.
• Peer educators becoming equipped to deal with the negative influences of peer pressure.
• Competition of pupils to become peer educators meant that pupils of a wide range of abilities and backgrounds were included.

The Assistant Rector recognised that running a similar peer education programme without the external support that they had would be very hard. Schools would not have time to develop such a scheme, with its training and support requirements.

The Assistant Rector saw no reason why RSE should not be included in the Peer Education programme, if it could be accommodated by a training and support element of the existing system.

Teachers

The teachers in this school did not have any "hands-on" involvement with running the Peer Education programme, but were reportedly very happy with what they saw as the benefits to the pupils and the school.

Pupils taking part as peer educators were reported to show more confidence and maturity than some of their year group, but peer educators could also be reminded of their role, and its function as a role model, on the odd occasion when they might step out of line.

Peer Educators

A researcher met with the peer educators on one of their weekly sessions. It was held at the end of the academic year, when the programme was complete, and, while there had been a small drop-out, nearly 80% of pupils remained committed to and involved in the scheme.

A pupil from S3 who had been involved as a peer educator the previous year and had been on placement with the Peer Education programme for work experience interviewed six peer educators individually, with the researcher being given permission to sit in on the interviews.

Not all of the peer educators wanted to be filmed but it was noticeable that those who agreed were confident and mature in their answers and in their body language. A consensus view emerged from the peer educators who spoke to camera that they had enjoyed the experience and would be keen to continue this type of work in some capacity. All of those interviewed said that their motivation had been to help pupils younger than themselves, but had found out that being a peer educator helped them as they felt they had developed team-work skills, confidence and had become more responsible.

A group of six peer educators then met with the researcher visiting the school, and gave further details about the scheme itself.

There had been competition to become a peer educator, but two of the girl pupils said that they had been aware of peer pressure not to take part. Some of their friends had tried to put these girls off the idea when it was first presented to them at a school assembly, and these girls were glad that there had been a chance to register interest in confidence.

The programme was described as Peer Education but as the literature review above explores, peer education may slide into "buddying". The S2 pupils who had been peer educators had introduced themselves to the P7 pupils as friends and had spoken to them about their interests and friends before starting to talk about drugs and alcohol. They would sit and work with the P7 pupils before moving on to the education element of the programme. As the school year moved on, the P7 pupils had spoken about their anxiety about going to secondary school, having heard stories about initiation rites for new secondary pupils and the S2 peer educators were able to reassure them about this. The peer educators would be a familiar and reassuring presence for the new S1 pupils, and their role could be seen as having developed an additional function of buddying.

When asked about the possibility of including road safety in the programme for P7 pupils, the S2 peer educators were enthusiastic about this. They appeared very interested in road safety, seeing it as something that would be very important for P7s to know about, particularly before they moved to secondary school. They had suggestions as to how road safety might be covered and spoke enthusiastically about using videos and the experience of young people who had been involved in road accidents to educate the younger pupils.

Senior pupils

The researcher met with a group of four senior pupils (two S6, one S5 and one S4) who had been peer educators in S2, but who had continued informal links with the P7 pupils whom they had befriended and tutored once they came to secondary school. The senior pupils had not taught road safety but thought that it might be useful to cover it with younger pupils. All members of the group admitted to having friends or to having themselves behaved irresponsibly as road users as drivers, pedestrians or passengers. They saw irresponsible behaviour on the road as a kind of sport, pitting themselves against other road users.

They felt that to be effective, road safety peer education would have to be dramatic, and could include:

• Videos or witness testimony of real accidents.
• Reminders of road safety rules in real contexts.
• Case studies of irresponsible road behaviour and consequences that could be discussed by groups of pupils.
• A video based on flashbacks that a road accident victim has from his/her hospital bed, with accompanying resources for discussion points.

Male: Female ratios

Fewer boys than girls had become peer educators and even the boys recognised that they were less mature than the girls were at S2.

5.2 School B

Background

School B was located in the suburbs of a northern Scottish city with a roll of 835 students at the time of the research. It drew a mix of pupils from rural and urban backgrounds.

The school operated a number of peer involvement schemes, which covered:

• Peer Support
• Peer Assessment
• Buddying
• Paired Learning
• Peer Education

Buddying, paired learning and peer education took place on a regular basis. S5/6 pupils normally volunteered to assist in peer education, but sometimes boys considered to be appropriate candidates were specifically asked by staff to take part to redress the gender balance, as most volunteers were girls.

Buddying involved S5/6 students attending S1 register classes within their house (there were five houses in the school). This was seen as particularly important in the first term to help S1 pupils settle in. The S5/6 buddies also attended and assisted at S1 PSE classes to support young pupils. All these S5/6 buddies had attended a one-day buddying training course.

Paired learning took place in a number of subject areas. It was open to any department and was negotiated between S5/6 students and subject teachers. Paired reading and Maths where S5/6 students helped S1s on a one-to-one basis was a structured programme run by the Support for Learning Department. S1 pupils were 'educated' for regular 20-minute periods by S5/6 outside the main classroom setting. The S5/6 pupils were given specific training for this work. Paired learning and work in the class situation took place in other subject areas, including PE, PSE, History, Music and Geography.

S5/6 students had more time to devote to peer education schemes, although there is a suggestion that involving S3/4s in peer education might be a benefit to these pupils as it would increase their confidence, sense of responsibility, etc.

Peer Education Experience

Senior Management

It was considered that there was scope for extending peer education into RSE, but that it would be competing with other areas of the informal curriculum. One form of RS peer involvement was identified in the current bus monitor system.

The interviewees knew of some other peer education programmes ( e.g. sex education) being used in other schools in the region but had not introduced these in their school.

Interviewees perceived the following strengths and weaknesses of peer education:

Strengths:

• Pupils would learn most by teaching, so it was good for the pupil educators.
• 'Learners' often have more in common with peer educators and are willing to discuss with, and learn from, people nearer their own age.
• There were credibility advantages with peers (as long as the person was credible to other pupils).

Weaknesses:

Any weaknesses were believed to centre around sustainability and organisational problems.

• Administrative issues would involve additional timetabling, as it would be necessary to make sure peer educators were available and that peer education demands did not interfere with their studies.
• Some supervision by teaching staff would be required to support peer education schemes. The Depute Rector had an overview of the schemes, but generally supervision fell to the head of the relevant department ( e.g. paired reading was overseen by the head of the Support for Learning department.)

Teaching Staff

Teachers emphasised that the S6 students were particularly helpful in S1 guidance when health education and safety topics were being taught.

The perceived strengths of the Peer Education programmes were similar to those identified by senior management, but with the emphasis that both educator and educated gained confidence and better communication skills, whilst the peer educators developed responsibility. No weaknesses could be thought of and peer education was seen as a useful tool. Peer education was considered to provide interesting development opportunities and to be important because of the need to learn in social groups.

When asked about extending peer education to road safety, interviewees thought that peer educators were almost certain to have recent useful experiences and would understand the problems and concerns of those being educated.

Training was thought essential. Training for RS topics might well involve outside speakers such as RSOs. Resources would be required and these should, if possible, remain at the school.

Pupils

Groups of pupils from S2 (five pupils) and S6 (six pupils) were interviewed.

S2 Pupils

S2 pupils had experienced 'registration buddies' and S6 students helping in PSE/Guidance and Geography. Much of the registration buddying and guidance work took place in the first term, registration buddying on a daily basis and PSE weekly. Other subjects were on a less frequent basis. S5/6 were reported as being 'helpful' and led to a better understanding of parts of the work undertaken. One S2 said that it was more 'fun' having the seniors around and that this helped to create a good atmosphere in the classroom. These pupils said it was often good to have "more than one teacher in the classroom" to help. One S2 said it gave the senior pupils 'people skills', whilst another, whose older brother had been a peer educator and buddy commented it was "something to go on their CV and helps if they want to be a teacher when they leave school".

S2s' views on RS centred on a discussion on their own road safety experience (crossing roads "which we did in primary school", bus monitors and Crash Magnets).

S2 pupils thought it would be useful if older pupils were involved in RS because they would remember and understand problems young people face on the road better than teachers. They could also tell younger pupils about their experiences. Two S2s thought horror stories would be a better way of learning about RS. One S2 said he was not really interested about RS at present, but probably would be once he was old enough to drive. The consensus was that RSE had been "done at lot at primary", which pupils still remembered and doing more RS was not particularly interesting to them at present.

S6 Pupils

S6 students thought the strength of peer education was that it was often easier for younger pupils to approach a senior pupil rather than a teacher because they are not 'authority'. It also gave younger pupils confidence around seniors, which was recognised as important. The weakness was mainly to do with administration because peer education work depended on timetabling. There was often too much change in S6 personnel because they could only do certain times due to school work, exams, etc and when they were not available another senior helped out.

The peer education schemes were perceived to be reasonably well organised by S6 and relevant teaching staff. There were buddy leaders (one per house) who organised the buddies in their house - it was felt there could be some improvements in the administration at this level.

The S6 group mentioned informal peer support. This was perceived to be positive. The view of the S6s was that peer education depended on the pupils involved. Some pupils did not want additional help from peer educators. However, it was felt that having seniors in the classroom encouraged the majority of younger pupils. The one-to-one situations and registration buddying were seen to promote trust between pupils. The senior pupils felt the school benefited from the various peer involvement schemes and teachers seemed to be appreciative of the programmes - they respected the seniors more and the seniors involved have a more responsible attitude. The target pupils' confidence and skill levels increased and there tended to be an improvement in behaviour.

The S6 pupils felt that being peer educators had helped them to be more patient and understanding, made them confident to talk to groups and in some cases renewed some forgotten knowledge. It was useful to put on their CVs, was often very enjoyable and gave them a great sense of satisfaction when the pupil they were mentoring improved.

Male: Female ratios

There were about 40 buddies in the school - more female than male. In the opinion of the S6 focus group, some boys do not get involved because they think it is more difficult for them to talk to younger pupils. Some boys were also considered 'lazy' and it was felt that often young pupils prefer to discuss most issues with girl rather than boy mentors, possibly because girls tend to be more mature and understanding of problems faced by young pupils.

5.3 School C

Background

School C, in the heart of the former Strathclyde region, had a roll of 760 pupils and a catchment that drew from areas of social deprivation. This school operated both paired reading and buddying systems.

Peer Education Experience

Buddying system

The scheme had been running for five years and the training for participants had become more sophisticated as time had passed. Every S6 pupil became a buddy, and the whole year was withdrawn for a half-day training session, run by a psychologist and supported by members of staff. At the start of the new school, year, S6 buddies were allocated three or four pupils in S1, to befriend them and develop support structures. The senior pupils would arrange an open meeting session where their buddies could come and meet them and chat through any issues.

There was a variable take-up by junior pupils, but it was felt that the scheme was beneficial to those pupils who might otherwise experience social or other problems and have no means of support.

Paired reading

Paired reading was a feature of School C. A large number of pupils in the school had literacy problems and even 15 minutes' supported reading per week had been found to be beneficial. The scheme could also be extended to support in other areas, and other academic subjects.

Teaching Staff

Interviews were held with two principal teachers of guidance and pupil support, who were involved in supporting the buddying scheme. An interview was also held with the Principal Teacher of Support for Learning.

Strengths

The strengths of the schemes were seen as:

• Empowerment of pupils who took part as buddies, some of whom had had learning or behavioural problems of their own.
• A means for buddies of developing important skills in an alternative to the formal curriculum.
• A means of reducing stress on younger pupils and helping improve their learning environment.

Weaknesses

Any weaknesses identified by any of the interviewees were administrative. This included a lack on continuity that might be caused by senior pupils on exam leave, and the fact that there might be inconsistencies between the ways in which buddying was carried out by different pupils in the school. The fact that it was a voluntary programme also meant that buddies' time might be committed elsewhere.

Inclusion of RSE

It was felt that it might be difficult to include RSE as a standard part of the buddying scheme, as what was covered was voluntary, and the school could not oblige pupils to cover RSE if they did not want to. However, the interviewees said that they would be willing to try to include RSE in the programme, if there was some formal structure to the road safety element, and training could be given.

Pupils

Interviews were held with a group of S2 pupils who had been buddied and with S6 pupils who had been buddies. The researcher was also given copies of some of the evaluation sheets that had been completed by the S6 buddies.

S2 Pupils

The S2 pupils had enjoyed the experience of being buddied, mainly as a way of getting to know new people in the school. Some of the pupils in this group had also been given paired reading support and had enjoyed this experience.

When asked about road safety, their initial response was to say that they knew all about it, as this had been covered in primary school. However, in discussion, it transpired that more than half of the pupils in the group had either been involved in a road accident at least once, or were related to some one who had been injured in a road accident. The pupils in this group then began to talk about ways in which they could cover road safety with buddies acting as peer educators. They suggested:

• Information on real accidents.
• Videos of real accidents.
• Someone making it "look cool" not to get knocked down.

S6 Pupils

The S6 pupils interviewed had enjoyed their experience as buddies, and felt that they had developed a good relationship with the younger pupils, especially the younger ones who had behavioural problems. They had enjoyed the training workshop provided and felt that they and the younger pupils had benefitted from the experience. They believed that road safety could be covered within their schemes, as long as they were given input on what to cover and how to cover it.

Evaluation forms returned by some of the older pupils who had been buddies were largely positive and any suggestions for improvements focused on administrative issues.

Male: Female ratios

In School C, more boys than girls acted as buddies.

5.4 School D

Background

School D was a mixed secondary school in a Scottish University town. With a roll of 1,850, it drew its pupils from a mix of urban and rural communities, representing a wide range of socio-economic conditions. The school was split-site.

The school had a long history and could trace its peer education programme to practice adopted in India by its founder in 1833. The scheme under review had been running since 1993 when it had been started by the Principal Teacher of Behaviour Support. In her work with pupils with behavioural support needs, she had discovered that many of them had learning problems and that if they were given appropriate help with their problem subjects, their behaviour improved. As she was not equipped to teach all of the academic subjects (such as physics, maths, Latin, English and French) with which her pupils had problems, she recruited pupils with strengths in these subjects to support their learning.

Peer Education Experience

Teaching staff

The Principal Teacher (Behavioural Support) ran the peer education programme, which involved S6 pupils working with pupils from lower in the school who had learning or behavioural problems (or both). All S6 pupils had the chance to become peer educators: S5 pupils were inducted at the end of their summer term when they were given a brief introduction to the peer education scheme and asked if they would like to volunteer. Volunteers were trained after the summer holidays, at the start of sixth year, in a one-day training event hosted by a local business on premises a few miles away from the school. Their role was to support learning of pupils lower down the school who had difficulties with specific subjects, for any reason. The only pre-requisite was that the peer educators should have strength in one subject area that they could pass on to younger pupils.

Interviews were held with the Deputy Rector and the PT of Behavioural Support. Both interviewees spoke of the strengths of the scheme as being:

• Its broad base, enabling pupils to recognise perhaps unsuspected strengths in dealing with others.
• Of benefit to teachers who may not have been able to interact with some of their pupils in the way that best suited those pupils.
• Supportive of pupils with behavioural or learning problems who saw their peer educators as positive role models.
• Pupils who were being taught by older pupils seemed to pay more attention to what their peer educators were saying than they did to what teachers said.

The interviewees thought that while it might be difficult to accommodate road safety in a programme that was run on the basis of volunteers' subject strengths, it would be possible to offer peer educators the option of including road safety in their subject repertoire. This would work as long as it was recognised that the course was voluntary and that peer educators should be able to choose what they covered. It would also require good resources and training to be made available to the peer educators, and should involve someone from outwith the school carrying out the training.

Pupils

Interviews were held with a group of S2 pupils and a group of S6 pupils who had been peer educators.

S2 pupils

The S2 pupils who took part in the discussion had not received any road safety education, whether formally or through peer education while at secondary school. They believed that they had learned all that they needed to know about road safety while at primary school and that further road safety education was not necessary.

When asked about what they saw as danger activities to them while they were road users, two pupils mentioned travelling on buses and two mentioned riding bicycles. They made some suggestions as to how to remind road users like themselves about what to do on buses or bicycles, and agreed that it might be useful to hear from victims or witnesses of accidents or near accidents.

When asked if they would find it helpful to learn about road safety issues from older pupils in the school, they agreed that it would. Two boys in the group said they would find it interesting to hear about near accidents that older pupils had had. It would be important to avoid the glorification of danger by exploring examples of dangerous driving that had almost resulted in accidents, and to focus instead on the causes. However, the pupils suggested that the activities below could be carried out in a peer education context:

• Listening to first-hand accounts of accidents or near accidents.
• Discussing risk taking.
• Looking at local accident statistics.

S6 Pupils

A group of S6 peer educators met with the researcher. None of them had covered road safety with younger pupils but all felt that it would be very useful for all participants. They made the point that they and younger secondary pupils had no need of being reminded of the rules of the road, but needed help to see how different road user behaviours might affect them and their friends.

One pupil suggested that shock tactics would be best and the group discussed speed campaigns that they could remember and that had made an impact on them. One pupil said that children nowadays were exposed to a lot of violence on TV, videos and computer games, so there was no point in trying to hide the reality of road accidents from them.

Two pupils suggested that use of statistics was not the way to put forward a road safety message to their age group or younger pupils, but that it was important to engage pupils and make them realise that they could be involved in an accident. One pupil gave the example of a popular music group "Simple Plan", which had developed a video to accompany its song "Untitled" and had made a dedication on the video to a college friend of members of the group, who had died in a car accident whilst still at college. Simple Plan had joined forces with the pressure group MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving) in this message. It made a strong impression on the member of the discussion group.

Another member of the group suggested that road safety should be tied in with drugs and alcohol education, and that pupils should be consulted on, and involved in, the development of a safety resource that could be used by peer educators.

All members of the group thought it was important that peer educators who wanted to cover road safety should be given one day's training from a road safety expert in a location outwith the school. All participants said that they would like facts that they could use. Videos and items for discussion groups would be useful, but they also felt it would be important for all participants in road safety by peer education to have some type of "hands-on" input. They would like to have material that would make pupils care about themselves and other road users.

It was recommended that the road safety peer educators should have follow-up workshops to enable them to talk about their experiences, update their skills, and help develop a resource for other users.

Male: female ratios

More girls than boys became peer educators at School D.

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