Bring YEP to Your School

Are you a teacher or student leader? You can start a YEP program at your school. We’ll help you set it up, with ready-to-use class activities, support, and up to $500 in program funding.

Up to $500: in program funding per school
Grades 5–8: a class, or a club with 8+ students
8–12 hours: of in-class activities, linked to curriculum goals

The program

Give your students a chance to showcase their talents

Students become the teachers. In class, they learn how to teach and plan a lesson on something they’re good at. Then they prove what they’ve learned by teaching it to a real adult, like a parent, a teacher, or a senior.

Real practice, not a pretend lesson. Students show what they’ve learned by teaching someone who needs the skill.
Built for class time. Ready-to-use activities with a Teacher Guide, so prep is light.
Easy to assess. Evaluation tools help you assess students against curriculum expectations.

A Grade 5 tutor in a blue shirt pointing at a computer screen as he teaches an adult learner

You choose the format

You decide who and what they teach.

Check out some examples of what other schools have done:

Students taught their teachers skills they could use in their own classrooms, like bracelet making for kindergarten teachers and coding apps for Grade 4.
Students invited their parents to school for a few workshops on how to use Google Classroom.
Grade 8 students partnered with a local seniors’ centre to run lunchtime tech training.
In a school community where about 40 languages are spoken, a Grade 5 class went to the school’s parent centre every week to teach English to newcomer parents.

Or your own idea. Anything that puts your students’ talents to work for adults in your community.

Take a look inside

Sample: Communication Skills

Matching pages from the Student Workbook and the Teacher Guide.

From educators

What educators see in their students

Cloyce WeaverFormer Principal

Reaching the students school doesn’t work for

“YEP is hooking those kids who do not see themselves as fitting in at school.”

I’ve worked in education for decades, as a teacher, a principal, and a Student Achievement Officer with the Ontario Ministry of Education. Today I’m a Program Specialist at YEP. Along the way, I realized there’s a bunch of kids for whom school does not work. The structure is all wrong for their needs and learning styles.

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A school should focus not just on students’ academic performance, but on their well-being and their sense of belonging. There’s definitely more to a school community than YEP. However, YEP gets them through the door. It makes them feel comfortable within the actual physical environment of the school.

Most after-school and summer programs are facilitated by adults, and they are done to and for students, not by students. That’s the huge benefit of YEP. It is all about students.

Michelle LeeProgram Facilitator

Watching a struggling student turn things around

“It feels so great to be able to help others and see their progress.”

Week after week at the YEP program at a local high school, one student met me with rude remarks. No matter what I did, I was met with resistance, and I was exhausted. But by the second session of the program, he had become more polite, and he even invited me to a play he was in.

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He went from being a kid who was always called to the office to doing really well at school and taking part in at least three after-school programs. That’s the best part of being a YEP facilitator. I love seeing people’s progress from the time they join the program to when it ends.

YEP keeps you humble. Sometimes, it makes me so emotional that I cry. It feels so great to be able to help others and see their progress. Being part of that gives you so much more than anything else.

Program funding

Up to $500 when your group teaches at school

Students get the most out of YEP when they teach more than once. Each time your class or club runs an in-person teaching session at school, with the group teaching adults together, your school receives $100, up to $500 for 5 or more sessions. Training sessions don’t count toward the funding.

Teaching at home? Students who teach their own families at home are welcome to use the materials. The funding is for in-person sessions at school.

$100Teaching sessions: 1
$200Teaching sessions: 2
$300Teaching sessions: 3
$400Teaching sessions: 4
$500Teaching sessions: 5+

Use it however you like:

Snacks for participants
Gift cards for parents who attend
Food and certificates for an end-of-program celebration
Classroom supplies, like books, a 3D printer, or a projector
Materials for the lessons students teach