I'll reach out my hand to you, I'll have faith in all you do (The Jackson 5)

Apologies first up! I am in the middle of organising a peer support programme for the school and it's not as easy as it sounds. This post is an attempt to sort through some ideas.

Hang in there.

Some research on the concept reveals that there are some consistent themes that schools are keen to target in their peer support programmes.

Overview of Peer Support Session Themes Used by Schools

Session Theme	Number of schools using the theme (n=121)
Orientation to school	93
Getting to know you	98
Building the group	89
Communication	90
Cooperation	81
Self awareness/self esteem	61
Cultural awareness	54
Values	62
Feelings	51
Friendship and trust	90
Peer Pressure	78
Bullying	87

Instead of these things, my students appear to be more focused and positive about the effects of peer support for goal tracking, and providing practical help between students. So, not so keen on the touchy feelie themes outlined above.

They see peer support operating in the following ways:

• Small groups of 3 with mix of levels
• Having games and activities for form time (board games, debates, conversation starters)
• Older mentoring younger Y13 - Y7; Y12 - Y8; Y11 - Y9
• Need for peers to be on the same wave length
• Peer mentoring/tutoring/ counselling of another student
• At least a 2 year level gap between mentor and mentored

I like this accent on academic help and peer tutoring. 

I was first introduced to the concept and impressed by it at Cambridge High School back in 2000. Subsequently, I set up a clone of it at King John School in 2004.

Now it appears timely to revisit those ideas and combine them with some of the items in that chart to create a bespoke Kaipara Campus version.

I've ordered the manual from Peer Support NZ so we'll see what that can add to the mix as well and maybe adapt some things to our particular needs.