Re-Evaluating Traditional Classroom Roles to Empower Students as Active Leaders
- 4 days ago
- 9 min read
Written by Helen Kenworthy, Artistic Director
Helen champions the arts as a tool for change. Now, as CEO of RYTC Creatives CIC and Give Get Go Education, she mentors young people, creates pathways for them to thrive in the arts, and helps launch successful careers.
Most classrooms are built around a simple, familiar arrangement. One person holds the knowledge and the authority, and the other receives it. For many learners, this arrangement works well enough, but for students who have not thrived within traditional education, particularly those in Alternative Provision, that same arrangement can quietly reinforce the very disengagement it was meant to overcome.
Helen Kenworthy's work through Creative Pathway Methodology: Of Course You Can! Serving the Brilliantly Underestimated asks a more challenging question than how to deliver content more effectively. It asks who gets to lead the learning in the first place. Shifting the dynamic between teacher and learner is not about removing structure or expertise. It is about redistributing ownership so that young people become genuine participants in their own education, rather than recipients of someone else's plan for them.
A lesson can be calm, organised, and fully controlled by the adult while giving the learner very little opportunity to decide, question, create, or reflect. The young person may complete what is asked and still remain largely passive. Compliance can create the appearance of learning, but it is not the same as agency.
Why traditional classroom roles no longer serve every learner
The conventional teacher-learner relationship developed for good reasons, offering structure, consistency, and a clear transfer of knowledge from someone experienced to someone still learning. For many students, particularly those who have experienced instability elsewhere, that structure remains valuable. But for young people who have already experienced education as something done to them rather than with them, the same structure can feel like one more environment where their voice does not count.
Many learners in Alternative Provision arrive with a long history of being told what to do, how to behave, and what success should look like, often without being asked what any of that means to them. Some have become skilled at resistance because resistance was one of the few forms of control available to them.
Re-evaluating traditional roles is not about discarding guidance or expertise. It is about recognising that ownership and engagement grow fastest when a young person is treated as a genuine participant in decisions about their own learning, not merely the subject of them. It requires educators to trust that meaningful participation and high expectations can exist together.
What shifting the dynamic really means
Shifting the teacher-learner dynamic means moving from a model of instruction towards a model of collaboration, where the educator's expertise is still present but is used to guide rather than direct every part of the process. Rather than deciding everything on a young person's behalf, the educator builds in genuine choice, invites reflection, and treats the learner's insight into what helps them as valuable information.
In practice, this can look like a young person helping to set the pace of a lesson, choosing how they demonstrate what they have learned, or reflecting on what worked before the next session begins. The educator creates the conditions within which the young person can begin to lead while still holding the boundaries and wider purpose of the learning.
Agency is not the absence of structure
Giving learners more voice does not mean removing boundaries, lowering standards, or allowing every difficult task to be avoided. Meaningful agency depends on structure. Choice without clarity can be overwhelming, while freedom without support can become another experience of failure.
Completing a project may be non-negotiable, while the topic, format, or sequence can be chosen. A qualification may have required criteria, while the route towards meeting them can include practical, verbal, visual, or creative methods. The goal is not unlimited choice. It is meaningful influence within a safe and understandable framework.
Signs a young person needs more ownership over their learning
Some young people make it clear, often through behaviour rather than words, that the traditional balance of control is not working for them. Educators and practitioners may notice patterns such as:
Passive compliance without any real engagement or curiosity
Resistance or refusal that increases the moment control feels one-sided
A tendency to wait to be told exactly what to do, even for simple decisions
Little interest in tasks framed only as instructions rather than invitations
Sudden re-engagement when given even small amounts of choice
Frustration expressed as disruption rather than direct disagreement
A habit of asking whether something is right before attempting it independently
These patterns are rarely about unwillingness to learn. More often, they reflect a young person who has rarely been trusted with genuine ownership over their education. They may also show that choice itself needs to be introduced gradually because a learner who has always been directed can experience an open question as another chance to be wrong.
The educator's role as guide, not gatekeeper
Within Helen Kenworthy's approach, the educator's role shifts from gatekeeper of knowledge to guide through it. This does not mean stepping back entirely or removing structure, both of which many young people in Alternative Provision continue to need. It means using that structure deliberately to widen a young person's ownership over time.
A guide still brings expertise, sets boundaries, and holds high expectations. What changes is the intent, moving from control towards support that is designed to be handed over piece by piece as the young person becomes ready. The adult may model a decision, make one alongside the learner, invite the learner to make the next, and then reflect together on the result.
This is not always comfortable. Handing over genuine ownership means tolerating decisions that would not have been the educator's own choice and resisting the urge to rescue too quickly. Sometimes the most empowering response is not to provide the answer, but to offer the next prompt that helps the learner find it.
Key qualities of an empowering learning relationship
Educators who successfully shift this dynamic tend to share a consistent set of qualities:
Genuine curiosity: Asking a young person what they think before offering an answer.
Willingness to share control: Building real choice into how learning happens.
Transparency: Explaining the reasoning behind decisions rather than simply issuing them.
Patience with imperfect leadership: Allowing decisions that may not go smoothly.
Reflective practice: Reviewing what worked with the young person, not only reporting on them.
Consistency: Maintaining respect for a young person’s voice when a session becomes difficult.
Commitment to independence: Offering enough help for progress without taking over.
Together, these qualities create a relationship in which leadership is not limited to the loudest person in the room. It may be shown through careful choices, preparation, problem-solving, listening, and reflection.
Why this matters for the brilliantly underestimated
Many young people in Alternative Provision have been managed far more often than they have been consulted. Decisions about their education, behaviour, and even their potential have frequently been made without them, leaving little room to discover what it feels like to lead their own progress.
Shifting the balance offers something rare, the direct experience of being trusted. For the brilliantly underestimated, that trust is often the missing ingredient, not another instruction to follow, but a genuine invitation to help decide what happens next.
Across Helen's wider work, whether through Education Selection Box, The RYTC, or Give Get Go Education, the purpose is not to keep a learner dependent on adult direction. It is to help them recognise their own voice, use support effectively, and gradually become more able to shape the route ahead.
10 ways shifting teacher-learner dynamics empowers young people as active leaders
Shifting classroom roles does not happen through one dramatic handover of control. It develops through repeated, carefully structured opportunities for young people to contribute, decide, reflect, and take increasing responsibility. The following ten outcomes show how a more collaborative relationship can transform engagement, confidence, and readiness for life beyond education.
It rebuilds motivation through genuine choice: When young people are given real decisions about their learning, motivation grows from within rather than being imposed from outside. Even choosing where to begin, how to record an idea, or which role to take can create genuine investment in the process.
It restores a sense of voice that many learners have lost: For young people who have rarely been asked what they think, being genuinely consulted can be transformative. Trust grows when their insight is heard early enough to influence the pace, format, or direction of learning, rather than being collected after every decision has already been made.
It teaches decision-making as a practical skill: Leading one's own learning requires making choices and living with the results, a skill that transfers beyond the classroom. Educators can scaffold this by identifying options, considering consequences, choosing a route, and reviewing what happened without expecting every decision to be perfect.
It reduces behaviour that stems from powerlessness: Much disruptive behaviour can be a response to feeling controlled without input. Boundaries still matter, but a learner who understands the purpose, knows what they can influence, and has a respectful route for disagreement is less likely to need disruption as their only form of agency.
It builds a collaborative rather than adversarial relationship: When an educator is experienced as a guide rather than an authority to resist, the relationship becomes a source of support instead of tension. The learner is no longer positioned as the problem to be controlled, both people can work against the barrier or challenge together.
It helps young people recognise their own expertise: Every learner understands something about how they learn best, even if no one has asked them before. The educator brings knowledge of curriculum and progression, while the young person brings knowledge of their own responses, barriers, and strengths. Both forms of expertise matter.
It prepares young people for environments beyond education: Workplaces, further study, and adult life require initiative, communication, and decisions without constant direction. Planning, asking useful questions, managing time, and taking responsibility for a role are not extras beside learning. They are capacities young people can practise safely now.
It creates lasting change rather than temporary compliance: A young person who has genuinely led parts of their own learning carries that capability forward after the lesson has ended. Agency is more durable than compliance because the learner begins to understand their own process, notice when they are stuck, and choose a next step.
It strengthens the relationship between adult and young person: Shared leadership requires trust in both directions. Trust grows when adults are consistent, explain decisions, and remain respectful during difficult moments, and when young people are supported to repair mistakes rather than being permanently defined by them.
It gives quieter learners a route into participation: Not every young person leads loudly. Leadership may appear in a careful decision, reliable preparation, imaginative problem-solving, or thoughtful reflection. A broader understanding of leadership allows more learners to take genuine ownership, not only the most outspoken ones.
What about learners who resist agency?
Not every young person will immediately welcome choice or shared responsibility. Some have spent so long being directed that an open question feels unsafe. Others may fear that choosing creates another opportunity to be wrong, so they repeatedly say, 'I don't know,' or ask the adult to decide.
This is not evidence that agency is unsuitable. It is evidence that agency also needs scaffolding. Begin with limited, low-risk choices, model the thinking behind a decision, and allow the learner to revise a choice. As confidence grows, the range and consequence of decisions can grow too.
Alternative Provision as a place to rethink education
Alternative Provision is often discussed as a response to what has gone wrong. It can also be a place where education is redesigned around what helps young people re-enter learning. Smaller groups, flexible projects, and close relationships create opportunities to challenge assumptions about who holds knowledge, how progress is demonstrated, and what a classroom can feel like.
When educators learn to share thinking without abandoning leadership, respond to behaviour without erasing voice, and build independence without withdrawing support, they are not applying a specialist technique for a small group. They are practising better education.
Conclusion
Re-evaluating the traditional teacher-learner dynamic is not about abandoning structure, expertise, or high expectations. It is about recognising that young people, particularly those who have been let down by conventional education, grow fastest when they are trusted to help lead their own learning rather than simply receive it.
Helen Kenworthy's work through Of Course You Can! treats this shift as essential rather than optional, especially for students in Alternative Provision who have too often been spoken about rather than spoken with. Empowering young people as active leaders in their own education is not a lowering of standards. It is a raising of trust, and for the brilliantly underestimated, that trust changes everything.
When we move from compliance to co-creation, we do more than improve engagement. We help young people develop the voice, responsibility, self-belief, and practical judgement they will need long after the classroom has been left behind.
To explore more about empowering young people as active leaders in their own education, visit here.
Helen Kenworthy, Artistic Director
Helen Kenworthy’s career embodies the transformative power of the arts, from her early roles in the prestigious West End with Bill Kenwright to her impactful work in regional theatre. As manager of the Oxfordshire Youth Arts Partnership, she created pathways for young people to thrive in the arts, with many going on to successful careers. Now at RYTC Creatives CIC and Give Get Go Education, Helen continues to inspire and mentor the next generation of theatre-makers and community leaders, offering invaluable opportunities for growth and professional development.
