Year 12 Peer Educators Begin Teaching Year 7
11th November 21
A group of Year 12 students have been training as Peer Educators and today they began delivering lessons on mental health to our Year 7 Crews.
The initiative, led by the Mental Health Foundation, was inspired by the idea that young people with mental health problems often feel the best support and advice comes from their school peers.
The volunteers have received training from school staff on how to deliver a series of five lessons to the younger students. Armed with lesson plans, workbooks and slides, they took on their first lesson today under the watchful eyes of the Year 7 Form Tutors.
What does the project teach?
The project lessons introduce the topic of mental health and wellbeing, including:
- Mental health awareness –what is ‘mental health’ and what are ‘mental health problems’?
- Why mental health problems happen, including risk and protective factors.
- Tips for good mental health
- Mental health ‘first aid’ skills we can use when not feeling our best.
- Helping others – what can we do to help those around us? Where might they get help if they need it?
The Year 12 students benefit from improved public speaking skills, they get to increase their own knowledge of the subject and add to the role of mental health ambassador to their CVs.
One of the Peer Educators, Sienna told us: “We’re going to be working with the Year 7s to teach them about looking after your own mental health. Learning how to teach has been interesting. I joined the programme because I liked the concept of older students teaching younger students and teaching is something I’m interested in doing. Mental health is so important so I think this programme is a great idea.”
