Centre stage papers – Days 3, 4 & 5: Extending the vision

To inform or transform? That is the question

 

 

If we, as educators, are to deliver every child’s entitlement to a meaningful, useful education, we cannot do it within the ideological framework of the Victorian era. As the personalising learning agenda affirms, children are not ‘little vessels’ responsive to having ‘imperial gallons of facts poured into them’ and teachers are not automatons on a General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) factory production line. We are all creative, curious beings who, in the right environment, will excel.

Academic Peer Tutoring, where one group of students is trained to teach (a usually younger) group of peers, is a paradigmatic shift to a model where students interrogate their own learning dynamics, as their teachers become learning facilitators. This relationship provides broad scope for highly significant learning conversations. These interactions, traditionally limited to Personal Social and Health Education (PHSE) lessons, academic days or parents’ evenings, are sewn into the fabric of the taught curriculum, necessarily repairing the fissure between pastoral and academic.

APT involves a rigorous academic training that enables students to deliver schemes of work, conduct baseline assessments, interpret and apply national curriculum and exam criteria, identify their own and their tutees’ prompts and barriers to learning, and plan and evaluate lessons to ensure progression. Their own teachers become an older, more experienced form of tutor, someone whose guidance and encouragement is essential to the development of an adept peer tutor, a person whose approach may be respected and emulated as students gradually align themselves to the adults’ vision for achievement.

Learning encounters between students have a freshness that ordinary classroom dynamics may lack. Every tired teacher and recalcitrant student knows how to be an actor in a pre-scripted dialogue, both parties regurgitating well-worn sentences and sentiments they may no longer feel. Only force of habit keeps this type of classroom drama alive - this and the fact that reputations are staked on winning when the two sides go to war. APT dissolves the conflict, allowing teachers and students to co-construct individual learning plans and support programmes.

While incorporating Academic Peer Tutoring into the timetable requires a meticulous degree of planning and organisation, it is also infinitely ‘do-able’ and the rewards are like no other. Schools such as The Charter School, in Southwark, are living proof. After three years of our work together, they now have an APT steering committee, with APT being trialled in several areas of the taught curriculum. 

At Beaverwood School for Girls, in Bromley, the year 7 Special Educational Needs (SEN) cohort is taught for a term by year 9s. Last year, 20% of the tutees graduated from curriculum support and, of those remaining, 85% increased their reading and/or spelling ages. Several of the year 9 students were on the school’s ‘cause for concern’ list. Below, I provide some highlights of our work in The Charter School.

One of our main aims at The Charter School in 2006 has been to create a network of Academic Peer Tutoring across the school. Because we wanted to make APT a regular part of the curriculum, at the earliest possible stage in a student’s life, we decided to include some links with a local primary school. This would ensure that those incoming year 7s would already have had APT experience and could then fulfil an APT tutor’s role for year 6 and year 5 children in the future.

We focused on our key stage 3 students, seeking to include as many subjects as possible: maths (years 8 and 7) and English, ICT and art (years 9 and 5) in that order, with some overlaps in terms of time. The first of our maths projects was so successful that we ran another one a few weeks later. One of the maths teachers commented:

‘Many year 8s really rose to the occasion, put in significant work and showed confidence rarely seen in such a set. A few year 8s were particularly exceptional and prepared their own resources. Year 7s clearly learned two new topics directly from their peers at a pace suitable to them individually’.

A colleague concurred:

‘The topic of subtraction has been particularly difficult to teach to my year 7s, mainly due to teaching from the front and not being able to give each pupil individual attention. I’m happy to say they can all subtract superbly now and asked today when they can have their next lesson with the year 9s’.

In English, we worked with a year 9 teacher and her group of students, who were immediately receptive to the idea of teaching a class of year 5 primary school children. Along with some work on listening skills and the emotional consequences of being ignored, we devoted a substantial part of the APT tutors’ initial two-hour training session to discussing and planning what they would teach.

Someone suggested, ‘We should teach them about the world’, and another felt, ‘How to treat people properly’ would be a useful topic. Through a dynamic group conversation, the students managed to incorporate an academic content into this ethical framework, with ideas ranging from poetry and story writing to general punctuation, and cartoons taught as a distinct genre.

Their teacher found the experience ‘really illuminating’. She said: ‘My class has quite a few characters in it who have reputations in the school as difficult and challenging. Although I have built up a reasonable relationship with them, I often find them a challenge – they can ignore me, talk over me and generally pay little attention’.

During their APT sessions I think I saw a wonderful glimpse of the adults they would eventually become. They were so mature, sensible, kind, gentle and excellent listeners. They were all really concerned for their tutees’ welfare and what they were learning. The effort they put into their preparation was impressive and showed real dedication.

‘A lot of them said it made them understand what it is to be a teacher and therefore they behave better in class … Most of the students said the best thing about APT was working with the kids who were described as “interesting” and “fun.” They would all like to do it again but would like more time to get to know their tutees properly.’

The year 5 students’ questionnaires revealed that all but one of the 30 children would like to participate in future APT projects. They said they had learned a solid amount about punctuation, understanding poetry generally and haikus and acrostics specifically, while feeling free to talk to their APT tutors. They appreciated the ‘fun’ they had while learning and ‘the way [they] were taught’. Their main criticism was the shortness of the lessons and the fact there were not enough of them. When asked to ‘Tick the one you prefer being taught by’, they said:

• year 9 APT tutor:50%
• teacher: 7%
• a mixture of both: 43%.

Two parents who came along to The Charter School with their year children were impressed by a scheme which ‘gives such a good introduction to secondary school’. During one of the primary school visits, Betsan Williams, the school’s deputy head, noted:

‘The transferable skills displayed by previously disaffected/disengaged pupils make this inspirational to witness.  ‘N’, as an example, is hard work in the classroom, even for very experienced staff who have a whole range of strategies and skills to deploy. Yet, give him the lead in managing, planning and executing a learning task and he utterly flourishes.

His boundaries have been changed. His role is to make systems and structures that work for him and his tutees; he remains focused, motivated and committed, is encouraging and calm with his group, enthusiastically praises in an animated way and talks with understanding of the learning process as he evaluates the sessions. Just inspirational – ‘tears to your eyes’ stuff!’

A year 9 ITC teacher said of APT, ‘I am a total convert!’ explaining:

‘This was the first time that APT had been done in ICT at the Charter School. In agreement with the primary school, we chose to focus on teaching Spreadsheets and Formula, as this was both a requirement of the ICT curriculum for year 5 and one of the areas that year 9s found tricky.

The APT tutors taught the year 5s to create a spreadsheet for four of the World Cup Groups. In session one, they taught them the skills of spreadsheet design (column width, sizing, adding images (World Cup flags) and making headings bold). In session two, they taught them how to use basic formula (addition, subtraction and multiplication) to calculate the number of matches played, the goal difference and the number of points scored.

[These year 9s] are a class with a wide range of ability. Some students have been completely turned off ICT, and they are not taking ICT next year. About 50% of the students struggled with formula … I found it hard to let go and let them prepare. I was concerned to make sure they did a ‘good teaching’ job, so was over-labouring all the knowledge they needed. I found you needed to be organised but also to let the students ‘run’ a little with it.

On the whole the students responded well. They were fairly negative to start with and did not really want to work on the planning …The main finding was the students that benefited the most were the ones who were the weakest at the subject and often the worst behaved or the ones that lack concentration.’

Below is a selection of the questions and responses to a couple of sections from her year 9’s questionnaires.

What is the most and the least helpful thing about the way the project was organised? (Please include honest ideas on how we might improve things in the future).

Most helpful:

• ‘It is organised and helpful due to the lesson plan.’
• ‘Knowing what exactly we are teaching and becoming more definite on things we didn’t really know.’
• ‘Let myself know how much I know compared to others.’
• ‘When the pupil I was teaching had fun adding flags and colours.’
• ‘The kids were easy to teach.’

Least helpful:

• ‘We do not do that many lessons and when we do we have to wait for a week.’
• ‘I had one child who did not know anything, so all my attention went to her.’
• ‘Not enough lessons.’
• ‘The child could be more clever than the tutor.’
• ‘I missed the lesson on planning.’

What was the most interesting thing about teaching?

• ‘Coming prepared to the lesson with an interesting fun lesson to teach.’
• ‘Seeing that I have made a difference to the child and they know something they did not before.’
• ‘Seeing how well people respond to being taught by a person nearer their age.’
• ‘Interacting with the child and understanding them.’
• ‘Showing them the different ways they could do tables.’
• ‘I had control over what was going to happen.’
• ‘Watching the kids learn what you are teaching them.’
• ‘Seeing the kid complete the work.’

In what ways, if any, has Academic Peer Tutoring affected your own experience as a student in your usual lessons or as a person generally? (Include anything you have learned about yourself).

• ‘It makes you want to behave more because you have seen what the teachers go through.’
• ‘When you teach you remember a lot more and can learn from kids.’
• ‘I’ve learnt that I’m not so aggressive.’
• ‘I had to teach two students, as someone was not in and I learnt that it is hard to split your attention evenly between each student.’
• ‘Teachers go through quite a lot of frustration getting the class settled.’
• ‘I learnt I could be a good teacher.’
• ‘I know it is not too easy to teach.’
• ‘I understand why teachers get frustrated sometimes.’
• ‘I should actually listen to the teachers just like the students listened to me.’
• ‘I have learnt nothing about myself.’
• ‘That teachers have to do more planning and work than I thought.’
• ‘I learnt that it is fun to teach.’

Would you be interested in becoming involved in any other APT projects in the future? Yes/No

• Yes: 13
• No: 1

Any other comments?

• ‘I love APT. I think it’s really, really helpful and should be in every school.’
• ‘It could go either way. The child could be perfect but on the other hand they could be a monster.’
• ‘I think we should have more time with the child to get to know them better.’
• ‘I would love to help and make a difference to a next kid. I loved it.’

The year 5 teacher found the project particularly useful because he and his secondary school colleague were having similar difficulties teaching formula only at different stages of the ICT curriculum. He was enthusiastic about the classroom dynamic, saying:

‘I feel this was a very valuable experience for the children in several ways. The pupils were required to create a World Cup spreadsheet using formulas to auto-fill the values. They enjoyed this challenging and topical task, which extended the work done earlier in the year on spreadsheets, especially in terms of referencing cells and wiring formulas.

The year 5s greatly enjoyed having a peer tutor who fulfilled an older brother/sister role. These teachers were well prepared and patient, able to explain and help on a one to one basis, which enabled pupils to achieve trickier tasks.

Secondary school is a source of great fear and anxiety for year 5 and 6 pupils. This was a much more settling experience preparing for transition than a normal visit. The pupils were able to work at Charter and feel that this is a normal and non-threatening environment. Older year 9 pupils acting as teachers had a caring and helpful role making them less intimidating for younger children . . .

The feedback from the pupils was generally positive. They greatly enjoyed the experience, especially working with an older peer. The one negative was that they felt there was not enough sessions and would have liked a bit longer to be able to complete their work. We discussed the possibility of a full unit's work next time and the main problem is trying to organise and combine the two timetables to arrange enough sessions.’

Twenty-five of the year 5s returned their questionnaires and confirmed that they had learned a lot about spreadsheets, how to paste and merge cells and how the World Cup worked. One hundred per cent said they would like to work on an APT project in the future. They responded to ‘Tick the one you prefer being taught by’, thus:

• year 9 APT tutor: 44%
• teacher: 0%
• a mixture of both: 56%

A primary school teaching assistant received a surprise lesson herself when a year 9 student, whose tutees were absent, agreed to help her with some ICT. Because of a lack of confidence and little opportunity for reinforcement of her learning, she had been struggling. She also felt pressurised by others’ superior knowledge when training in a large group. After her session with a 14 year old expert, she wrote:

‘I learnt about using Excel and how to use the grids, how to highlight cells and copy and paste them. I also learnt how to use Border Art and Clip Art (reinforcement of what I already know). It was nice to have one to one training and have my questions answered clearly’.

A group of year 9 art students who taught tonal collage to a class of year 5s were gratified by their tutees’ response to the statement ‘Tick the one you prefer being taught by’.

• year 9 APT tutor: 68%
• teacher: 0%
• a mixture of both: 28%
• unanswered question: 4%

When asked, ‘What are you now able to do that you were not able to do before the project?’, six year 5s referred to making collages, while nine expressed an increased understanding of tone and the effects of light. The year 9s said they had enjoyed teaching art to the year 5s and found the resources and actually teaching the students (while learning themselves) the ‘most helpful’ part of the scheme, while the lack of contact time was the ‘least helpful’. 

The art technician felt that the year 9s ‘showed an increased maturity’ and were ‘organised, controlled and peaceful’. Although ‘the pupils were not instructed by staff during the lesson, without this authority they took responsibility themselves and achieved great results’. He said he ‘would like to see how it works when the tutees become more comfortable with the environment/tutees’.

A well organised and executed APT encounter gives educators a rare opportunity to reflect upon how, and why, children learn, while that learning is actually taking place. Normally, we are so preoccupied with the task of teaching and managing students’ behaviour, there is little time for observation. Yet, if we are to improve our service to students, this reflective space is crucial.

APT is a value system that advocates self-awareness and personal and communal responsibility, best modelled by adults who have the highest expectations of themselves and their students. Unless young people are taught to value themselves and the concept of contribution, schools can find themselves in a state of chronic reactivity. Evidence, including a wide assortment of testimonials from a vast range of APT projects (notably that so few students like to be taught solely by adult teachers), bears out the assertion that APT really does work.

People learn by doing and the most effective way to relay this message of contribution is to live it. Through hands-on and electronic intra and inter-school collaboration, we can keep education faithful to its etymological root, ‘to rear’ or ‘to draw out’. Furthermore, if we are to genuinely fulfil our students’ entitlement to personalised learning, we cannot do it without involving the persons at the centre of the debate – the students themselves.

If you require more information about Academic Peer Tutoring, or would like assistance with setting up a scheme in your school, you can contact Jacqueline Andrews at jandrews@apt4schools.co.uk.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Ms Jacqueline Andrews works for APT4schools, in London, in the UK.

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