Celebrating the achievements of sex and relationship peer educators: the development of an assessment process

Young people engaged as peer educators are increasingly important in sex and relationship education (SRE) programmes in a variety of settings and are particularly valued in the APAUSE programme (Rees et al., 1997 Rees JB Mellanby AR Tripp JH (1997) Peer‐led education in the classroom (APAUSE), a collaborative intervention between education, health and young people in: J. Coleman & D. Roker (Eds) Teenage sexuality: risk, health and education (London, Harwood Academic) 137 164  [Google Scholar]). The increase in popularity of peer education raises a need to value the inputs of young people and to give formal recognition to peers. An assessment process focusing on aspects of performance including communication, teamwork and relationships skills has been developed to assess volunteer peer educators on the APAUSE programme that aims to reconcile the typical tension in assessment of showing public recognition of competence and the ability to motivate learners. This paper reports initial findings from a pilot of this assessment process in 28 schools, involving 484 peer educators across England. Initial data suggest this has been extremely well received by teachers and peers. Experience of the process provides teachers with a method of feedback, which, by sharing the language of assessment with peers, enables the young people to be clearer about their tasks, making them more effective as peers and better able to articulate their experiences. These data are used to describe the contributions that an assessment process, focused on assessing performance in authentic situations, can make to SRE.