We sat down with our Student Voice forum at the beginning of last year to decide topics for the PSHE curriculum for the year ahead. They told us in no uncertain terms what their top priority was: what they were worried about, what they wanted to be better informed about, was the current state of terrorism in the world.

This was not being discussed at home, they said, and the television and media coverage - when they watched it and understood it (the first rare, the second rarer) - either went straight over their heads or frightened them.

It was obviously an area that we were already looking at with the Prevent duty and with the need to teach British values. “Right,” we said, “we can cover that; we can do something for you.”

“No,” they replied. “We’d like to take charge of this. We’ll do the research, we’ll plan the lessons and we’ll deliver them. You’re there to advise but we’re in the driving seat.”

And then they looked at us.

It was a heartening, if slightly alarming, moment when we - the teachers - had to put our money where our mouths were. We had asked, after all...

We are a school based in Liverpool - secondary, Catholic, all boys - and our intake is a largely white, working-class one. There were seven boys - five in Year 10 and two in Year 11 - who were particularly keen to have a go at this. They are bright, curious, questioning young people.

They approached the task with real gusto and, some may argue, in a much better - and diverse - way than many schools have done. They quickly decided that they wanted to deliver the lessons to Year 7 pupils. They discussed the areas that they thought should be covered, they divvied out responsibilities, they set a time frame for its completion and then they got on with it.

Group work has had a rather bad press recently but this was as sweet and encouraging an example of it as you could ever hope to see.

Misguided bias

There is an apparent bias - or so it feels in schools - towards only dealing with Islamic extremism with Prevent. Our boys realised how unfair and misguided that was. They were particularly determined to counteract this tendency. So they threw a wider net over radicalisation, looking at persons recently highlighted in the news who could be said to be extreme in their views, and also at figures such as Right-wing extremist Timothy McVeigh and neo-Nazi David Copeland.

Our role was very much that of consultants. We met with the group regularly (though they set the agenda) and we discussed their ideas and approaches as they progressed. And they had loads of ideas, in terms of what they wanted to cover and how they thought it might best be delivered.

By Christmas, the programme was more or less finalised and it was impressive. There were maps showing where Syria was; there were exercises on prejudice and stereotyping, informed by their wry understanding of just how often Liverpool and Liverpudlians have been on the receiving end of these; there were key terms and vocabulary, simply explained; there was powerful footage taken from the internet and judiciously used. They even worked out for themselves - and without any nudging from us - what success criteria they could use to measure the effectiveness of their teaching.

They obviously felt liberated, discussing something that gripped them with their peers

The Year 7 pupils loved it and the feedback we received was a delight. They clearly enjoyed being “taught” by people closer to their age and were far more prepared to open up with observations and questions than they might have been with us.

They obviously felt unconstrained, liberated, involved in discussing something that gripped them with their peers. As for those delivering the sessions, they confessed to having been nervous beforehand, but it was a delight to see them grow in confidence.

We filmed the students’ sessions so that we would have some record of the event (the Ofsted inspectors, who turned up a month later, were most impressed with this and commented on it favourably in their report). We got feedback from the Year 7 classes involved and we also spoke with the presenters themselves, who were very self-reflective about what had gone well and what could be improved for next time.

It just proved that when you trust students, you get it back in spades. And for us, there was no better way of ensuring that Prevent did not close down debate, but opened it out in a beneficial way for all.

Paul Capstick and Suzanne Miller teach at Cardinal Heenan Catholic High School in Liverpool