Peer Assisted Learning: The Education Game-Changer You’re About to Hear More About
What if schools could boost every student’s reading skills—not just the top or the struggling few? That’s the big promise of Peer Assisted Learning (PAL), which takes the spotlight at the British Psychological Society’s much-anticipated “Psych at the Mic” in February 2025. While the event runs in Nottingham, the approach could ripple through classrooms across the UK, thanks to accessible online participation.
The goal? Get all students talking, questioning, and supporting each other as readers. Instead of keeping reading practice solitary or reserved for teacher-led groups, PAL turns the whole class into a peer-powered learning engine. Students work in pairs or small teams, taking turns as both the ‘tutor’ and the learner. Sounds simple, but the early results reported from pilot programs are catching attention: improved reading comprehension, faster oral fluency, and—maybe most surprising—rising confidence levels even in pupils who usually hang back.
How Peer Tutoring Works—And Why It Sticks
PAL isn’t just about students reading to each other. It’s structured, research-backed, and carefully planned so everyone gets a chance to lead and learn. Pupils are matched to foster cognitive and social connection—meaning their skill levels aren’t so far apart that one always leads. They practice reading, discuss understanding, ask questions, and sometimes even coach each other on tricky vocabulary or phrasing.
Why does it work? Psychologists point to the ‘cognitive and social congruence’ at play. Kids are often less intimidated by a classmate than an adult. They ask more, risk mistakes, and the explanations they give each other often make more sense, because they’re coming from fellow learners. The social boost—students feeling helpful and included—is just as important as the academic gains, especially for those who don’t usually speak up in group settings.
Events like “Psych at the Mic” are timely, as more schools feel the pressure to close gaps widened during recent years. The BPS East Midlands group is putting practical advice front and center. Teachers and school psychologists will walk away with blueprints for rolling out whole-class PAL, tools to measure what’s working, and plenty of stories from classrooms where even quiet students find their voice.
Big educational players, like CCA, have begun to customize versions of PAL, adapting for different ages, subjects, and even students with specific needs. The energy now is about making sure strategies fit every classroom, not just the average one in the textbooks. PAL is being recognized not just as another reading intervention, but as a way to build long-term learning habits, social skills, and self-belief.
The next steps could matter even more: online options mean teachers from beyond Nottingham can start using these strategies fast. If PAL lives up to the buzzy research, the schools that get on board early could see student engagement and reading gains others will be scrambling to match.