For Teachers

 

Introduction

The Peer Support Trust provides training for teachers in the peer support programme.

Each district committee organises training for its district. Training programmes are held each year, usually at the end of the year. Schools are sent information about training courses by the district committees.

The training programme is usually two days in length and aims to give teachers a comprehensive understanding of how the programme is structured and how the programme can be effectively implemented in their school. The programme aims to train senior students to act as peer support leaders. They run a programme usually in the first term of each year with new students to the school, usually Year 9.

Components of the programme include:

• Getting to Know You
• Orientation to the School
• Building the group
• Communication
• Co-operation
• Self Awareness
• Cultural Awareness
• Values
• Expressing Feelings
• Friendship and Trust
• Peer Pressure
• Bullying
• Family relationships

The programme provides schools with an opportunity to offer a cross-curricular programme which introduces students to the values and key competencies of the Curriculum Framework.
 

Teacher Professional Development courses

Professional development courses for teachers are offered in various locations in New Zealand usually in November -December each year.   The courses are designed to introduce teachers to the Peer Support programme and equip them with the skills and strategies to run the programme in their school.

Here are some examples of the activities teachers are involved in during the courses.

Teachers talk about their peer support programmes

The following case studies came from interviews with peer support coordinators. They provide you with insights into how the peer support programme can be organised and the kinds of challenges that can be encountered:

School A

 

"I’ve picked up the peer support programme after a couple of years of giving it over to another person – just from workload and we .. last year .. asked for any interested year 13s plus any interested Year 12s because we had a low number of students – we send out letters in the holidays and we do our two-day training at the start of the year before the rest of the school come in.

Quite a few issues with that this year because of the timing of that … in the past we’ve gone out to … Park for two days and we try and camp out overnight.. and the Year 9 tutors are expected to attend that training and that’s come down historically through senior management – this year we cut it down to the one day at .. Park or overnight and the following day and gave in-school training using Col David Rosevear who’s closely linked in with the principal. He did a whole thing on being a leader and what is leadership – started off that way and we looked at management – issues arising from dealing with year 9s and those sorts of things and good classroom practices. We got some teachers in to give their hints and then we went out overnight to the….Park – so that’s our training.

There are a number of issues surrounding that – teachers come out for the one day. We run it for term one only but what we find with the small number of seniors that we have, the nature of the students etc – one term is definitely sufficient. From my point of view I would like to see some sort of ‘bully-busting – more of that sort of thing in Term 2 with just those students who are really motivated to continue the programme.

 

We have quite a problem with motivating the students to continue the programme. They go out on camp with the Year 9 classes and act in-between the teacher – you know not quite the teachers – but they are expected to help get the students organised and be good role models and that’s a really good time. The kids really do benefit from that time. So we look basically at just getting to know you, feeling safe around school, introductions – those kinds of activities. We don’t go too much into the other stuff later on in the programme.

Q: When you say you have Year 12 and some Year 13s – you mean like for the next year so they’re really Year 11 when you’re starting to get their indication?

Yes that’s what the previous teacher did. She asked them – any Year 11 and 12s – whether they would be interested in peer support the following year, so they would have been Years 11 and 12, yes. This year I’m going to push any of those Year 12s who’ve already done it they will know what’s expected of them, they’re the leaders of the leaders, I’m expecting them to take a more senior role. I’m only wanting 8 to 10 Year 12s this year, for next year, so I’m wanting them just to make up the numbers, there ended up being far too many Year 12s so that hasn’t worked as well I don’t think.

Q: When do you run your programme – during the week ?

We run in the 25th period which is Friday period 5, that’s a time when our seniors are not timetabled to have any classes so that they finish at the end of Period 4 on a Friday which is before lunch because we do 2/2/1 so in the first term the students aren’t kept back for any extra work, there’s no study or revision, so it works quite well. It’s when all the core teachers unfortunately are timetabled with their junior classes which means that in Terms 2 and 3 and 4 all the teachers have to teach their Year 9 social studies or whatever at the time on a Friday which isn’t so good. That’s the way we do it. It tends to work pretty well. The kids know that they’ve got to come at lunchtime to get all the gear. They get it and take it out and I’m not teaching that period so I wander round – it works pretty well – it’s a full 50 minutes to an hour.

Q: And that’s each Friday in Term one ?

Pretty much. By the time.. they’re there when the kids do the introductory day, then we do every Friday until camp (week 6) and then they do a couple of other sessions – so yes it’s pretty much the whole of Term 1.

Q: So do they all get to go on camp or only some of them ?

No – they’re all asked to go. Some of them can’t go because of work commitments or whatever. This year again we had too many – something I inherited so I’m going to change that again next year so that I make certain we only have a certain number going because we had too many seniors – they outnumbered the juniors just about. One teacher and three seniors for a group of about 20 kids which was almost too much. And they run camp activities – peer support games and larger group games. It’s just a real role modelling. They are sharing their experience with the Year 9s and making them feel good about it.   Assessment-wise would be my only real concern.

 

School B

 

We spread the training over two or three days at the very beginning of the year and wrap it round re-enrolment and things like that. Then the leaders come and do the first session with the Year 9s when they come for their very first assembly. Then the following day – there is a day just for Year 9s. So we go through a normal day and the first period of that day is a peer support period so the leaders come in and do that and they do some training as well and actually there is an advantage in actually getting them to go and do some actual real work and then come back and have some more training because they are able to raise some of the issues they have experienced. We include behaviour management stuff. We get the RTLBs to talk about behaviour management and we take them through the exercises. The Year 9s then have four classroom sessions in Term 1 with student peer support leaders and the mentors who are the Year 9 form teachers.

We also have what is called ‘activities' day’ which is a day here at school where the Year 9s and peer support leaders and lots of teachers go through a rotation of a whole set of exercises – adventure-based learning/outdoor ed type of activities – which are in two locations in the school. We start in the morning with an assembly and each class is divided into two groups and they produce a banner for their group so we try to have a competition with that as well and as they go around all the activities they get scored on their participation and their group work and their debriefing. At the end of the day we come back together and we have a marshmallow-towers competition, again with marshmallow and spaghetti and they build towers and that’s usually quite popular. We try to do a lot of the cooperation stuff in the peer support manual on that day. The classroom sessions are ‘getting to know you’. We usually get them to do the cultural and bullying session then.

We also require that the leaders go to one form period each week in Term 1 in order to get to know the kids and help the teacher with settling in. They have the option of carrying on through the year if they want although not many of them do.

One of the problems we have is the number of Year 13s who come back and then drop out during the term and so if you’ve got barely enough leaders for at least 4 per form class and ideally 6 then you end up at the end of the term with gaps. That’s an ongoing issue for us and I’m not sure how we are going to address it.

Q: How many Year 9s do you have in each form class ?

Anywhere from 20 to 30 depending on the band they’re in. We try and make it so that if you divide the class into two for various activities that there are two leaders to work with each group.

It is quite fabulous because you do see amazing leadership happening from the kids.

I always enjoy ‘activities day’ although it’s a beggar of a thing to organise. It’s kind of like a military exercise because all the Year 9s, 40 something Year 13s and about 18 staff and the equipment. This year we had to postpone it because it rained, first time it's rained for years and it was a nightmare from that point of view but when you see them all out there doing stuff and getting into activities you realise that it really really is worth it. One of the exercises we do is a giant skipping rope and the activity is how many times can they run through without tripping, how many times can the whole group get through before somebody trips and it's one of the activities that they never want to stop. You know we give them 15 minutes to do the activity and five minutes to debrief it and the hooter will go and they don’t want to stop skipping. "

 

School C

"We train our leaders at the end of Year 12. We ask for volunteers first, draw up a list. And then once NCEA finishes and the criteria is that if you want to do peer support you are expected to be at that day. We encourage all of Year 12 to come to that as well. Pretty much they do actually because they haven’t quite got into jobs by that stage. We have one full day then involving the teachers who work with the programme and we train other people as well. And then I put the students into groups for the following year. It was really difficult with school starting the way it did. I ended up it with half a day to take the peer support people separately but next year I think that the set up at the beginning of the year is going to be different again. We were just so compressed getting everybody in and back into classrooms which people get upset about.

So we have half a day then and then I link two of the form leaders - two of the form leaders Are peer support leaders who stay with that class for the year – I pair them up because I have lots of them, I have over one hundred girls who want to do it, so I have them working in pairs with groups of a of Year 9s so that if someone is away I’ve got a back up .

So then form leaders come in with Year 9 when they first come in. I don’t actually start the peer support programme probably until the second week because we’ve also reintroduced houses and so we have a whole afternoon doing house activities. Somehow I probably need to work out a way of linking up more closely houses with the peer support stuff but it isn’t hasn’t happened quite yet. So at least we’ve done some activities there and its been good for the girls who’ve been able to draw on their training stuff – show some of their training stuff when they are doing house activities as well.

We start our programme usually in the second week and we are really fortunate to have it timetabled in Period 1 so that Year 13s are allowed out of their classes and Year 9s have it Period 1. Because we rotate the timetable we try – it means it's on a different day though – we put it in the bulletin and we  have it in a different period over that rotation – staff are very good about that really. It's pressured for space if it’s a wet day but the girls have to find spots around the school. 

 

 Because of that things tend to be a little more sedentary and because of that the girls tend to like to do more talking and verbal things rather than more physical things. Some of the PE girls have been really good – they get their groups together and say let's go on to the field and do some physical stuff - some competition stuff and that’s been really good this year.  Then each time when there’s full peer support I just make sure that the teachers who look after two groups have their information material that they’re going to work through and have checked in with the girls who have to report in to them, debrief on how the session went, any sort of troubleshooting, any problems and then they’re up and running for the next session. We do that this term.

 

In the second term we now have two more sessions just at assembly time to reinforce some of the issues – it tends to be the DPs who identify a bit of an issue in Year 9 and I just come up with an activity or theme which might address some of those things. It just gives the seniors two chances to touch base with their group again.

Generally we cover getting to know the routines at school and getting involved in sport and  activities and that sort of thing and then we have a session on making friends, a session on put-downs and being kind – probably a couple on that and then the last thing usually what sort of person you are. "

 

 

School D

"We have a two-step peer support – we don’t actually call it peer support. We start out with our Year 10s and we have Year 10 leaders. They start with a day’s camp. They go off site to a camp with lots of activities and they get trained up in these sorts of games, leadership roles, what they can do for the school at Year 10.

Then we have Year 12s who train for the following year after NCEA. They work with Year 9s at the start of the year. It’s a ratio of probably about 4 to 1. Basically all Year 13s are expected in some aspect to become a leader. Our form classes are vertical so they have a role in form class. They are expected to participate in that form class helping out the form teacher and that’s basically used from the start of the year. From that Year 12 leadership camp, that’s where head students are found.

 

We have academic captains, art captains.  Pretty much every area of the school are covered with captains and actually they do a lot of work as sport captains, cultural captains. They are actually well utilised.

Myself and the guidance team, we don’t really have a lot to do with that sort of side of leadership training. Our role comes in to the following year. We have a day camp where we have students who would like to be mediators, mentors or tutors and we take them off site again for a day’s workshop where we introduce the idea of what mediating and mentoring and tutoring is about. We have a number of speakers.

This year we had speakers talking about drugs and alcohol and the issues around that sort of thing in the Nelson area just as sort of something different for students to get an idea about, what they might come across. We had a mediation expert. During that day we have a few activities and basically do some scenarios about what mediation is and some basic training on mediation. That’s followed up every Wednesday they come in for training for the first term so the whole of the first term is training days on Wednesdays. Just at lunchtime – it’s an hour session. We have guests coming in again – District Health Nurse, other professionals. They receive a folder that they work through – it’s like a resource book things like confidentiality - all things we’ve discussed. They have their own folder that they go through and we add to it. In the back they have a calendar cum diary which gives them information about what’s happening in the school. They write down who they’re seeing, what’s happened and we check up on that. That kicks off in Term 2.

 

So full training for all of Term 1 and the other leadership part that I’ve discussed basically looks after the leadership role from Term 2 onwards after the trained student contacts take over. They’re in charge of mediating so any minor disagreements they come in to the guidance centre and they do the mediation. Mentoring –they pick up their own students, may be out of their form class and work on a buddy – Big Brother Big Sister – sort of mentoring.

My plan for the end of this year to take the training away from the start of the following year to the end of this year once NCEA has finished. I’ll start up a boys mentoring group which I think is an area I have a passion for. So that’s my plan – get more boys involved. Probably 75 to 80% of those involved are girls.

We have about 50 to 60 involved in the training day. It normally drops down to about 20. They are very active. We’ve even had past students come back. One past student comes in on Wednesday and she talks to the mentors. So it’s not only the Year 13s who pass on their experience. She also does some mentoring as well. So it’s very effective.

Our students really like being involved. Some of them get so passionate about it. We have about 1400 students so we have a huge pool to draw on, we’re very lucky with that . We get the ones who really want to do it. They stick with it for the whole year. 

Not all our Year 9s are involved. Just those who want to avail themselves of the opportunity. We have a school contact sheet with photos with names that goes around the school and it’s always publicised and the student can pick who they would like. They have badges – they love the badges. T-shirts we’re looking at as well.