Risk and responsibility: the potential of peer teaching to address negative leadership

Abstract

The article describes a cross-age peer teaching project which sought to explore the potential of peer teaching in encouraging disruptive secondary school pupils to participate more positively in school. Two Year 9 girls from a challenging urban secondary school were selected to teach a group of Year 6 pupils in the nearby primary school. The Year 9 students had been identified as negative leaders - popular, but disengaged from academic learning. However, there was one area of the curriculum in which the students were engaged - drama. The project involved the girls at each step of the intervention, encouraging them to feel that they were stakeholders in the learning of others. This experience revealed some of the reasons why the girls had become negative leaders. The study also suggests the contribution that constructive challenge can make to developing the self-esteem and confidence necessary for changes of behaviour.