The impacts of leadership opportunities on boys’ academic aspirations
Megan Froud-Davis
How can student leadership help increase aspiration?
Megan formulated her intervention for Year 10 boys based upon Kouzes and Posner’s ‘Student Leadership Challenge’. This challenge is structured as a five-step process within groups that elect their own student leader. While it has often been applied to extra-curricular activities, Megan chose to explore its potential for tackling a challenge within the curriculum in two subjects (History and PE), very directly targeting the development of effective strategies for tackling the skills required for particular examination style questions. The value of the process was explored over two learning cycles.
Findings revealed an improvement in both students’ attainment grades and their personal ‘attitude to learning’ grades, assessed by teachers. Students also felt aspired to achieve better in the subjects.