Peer assisted learning scheme (PALS)

Learning alongside other students on your course can give you a greater opportunity to discuss ideas, broaden your knowledge, gain confidence and make friends.

The Peer Assisted Learning Scheme (PALS) is a scheme of support for students, by students in the year above on the same course, and takes place as regular coordinated group study sessions. In PALS sessions you will get the opportunity to develop your study skills and revise course content. Your group will be small enough to work together, discussing ideas, completing tasks and checking understanding in a relaxed and friendly environment.

The students running the sessions are called PALS Leaders, they are trained and experienced students who have regular contact with academics in your programme to ensure that PALS sessions are relevant and well planned.

What happens in a PALS Session?

In a PALS session the PALS Leaders facilitate, they do not teach. PALS Leaders help first-year students to help themselves, give them support and advice, and signpost to places where they can get help. PALS Leaders are passing on their own knowledge and information. Most importantly, they set the climate for discussions within a relaxed and informal student-to-student atmosphere.

PALS is a place where all students can dictate the content of a session, can steer sessions towards topics that they really want to cover and can participate in a relaxed, safe environment away from tutors and lecturers. Sessions at the start are usually very much focused on settling in and getting oriented around the campus, whilst later sessions are more linked to things that first-year students have covered in lectures or workshops, as well as developing their study skills.