Compulsory PSHE, maybe?

Schools Minister announces statutory PSHE


DCSF has published the report by the group that was established
to review the delivery of Sex and Relationships Education (SRE) in
schools; and the Government response to the group's report.

The review was announced in the Children's Plan, in December 2007. The
steering group that undertook the review comprised practitioners
involved in the planning and delivery of SRE; experts in young people's
sexual health; representatives of faith groups; and young people. The
review was co-chaired by Schools Minister Jim Knight, Jackie Fisher,
Principal of Newcastle College and Josh McTaggart, a member of the UK
Youth Parliament. The group's independent report includes a number of
recommendations to Government, designed to improve the quality and
consistency of SRE in schools, to which the Government has responded.

The steering group's headline recommendation is that PSHE should be made statutory and be supported by a statutory programme of study (PoS) - in order to give it increased status/priority in schools.

The Government has accepted the arguments for statutory PSHE and agreed to undertake a
review headed by Sir Alasdair MacDonald to consider how to turn the decision that PSHE should have statutory status into a practicable way forward.

In addition, the Government will accept, or agree to consider further, all
of the steering group's other recommendations, designed to improve the
delivery of SRE. Recommendations broadly fall into 6 headings:

Those designed to improve the skills and confidence of those who deliver SRE - the key delivery challenge;

Those designed to encourage greater use of external professionals and agencies to support schools' delivery of SRE;

Those that address the need for more guidance and support on how best to deliver SRE;

Those designed to increase young people's opportunities to influence the design of their SRE programmes;

Those aimed at maximising the impact of wider Government programmes on the quality and consistency of SRE; and

Those designed to improve leadership on SRE, in terms of both school leadership teams and strategic oversight by Local Authorities and PCTs.

The report also considered how best to ensure that schools and parents could work in partnership to educate children and young people about sex and relationships.

Brook calls for compulsory sex and relationships education in all schools

Speaking to BBC Radio 1’s Newsbeat Brook’s Chief Executive, Simon Blake, called for all UK governments to ensure that all children as soon as they enter primary school will receive sex and relationships education in schools.
Simon Blake said:
“If we get high quality sex and relationships education in every primary and secondary school across the UK all the evidence shows teenage pregnancy rates will continue to fall and will improve young people’s sexual health.
“Whilst sex and relationships education continues to be patchy another generation of children and young people do not get the education they need to form healthy relationships and protect their sexual health.”
Brook wants every primary and secondary school to be legally required to provide sex and relationships education and secondary schools to ensure that young people have access to free confidential contraceptive and sexual health services.
Brook is undertaking a public vote asking the question, Do you agree that Government must ensure that all children and young people get education about puberty, relationships and sex at primary and secondary school? To register your vote please see www.brook.org.uk.
For media enquiries please contact Natalie Collyer, Press Officer, on 020 7284 6062 or 07500 786 762

Moving beyond the birds and the bees by Jackie Behan

I enjoyed Julie Wray’s discussion of language in particular what we call our body parts last week. It made me think how crucial the issue of language is in sexual health and how often in this country we find it easier to use words and phrases which confuse, rather than clarify.

It reminded me of the comments of young people made in a video booth consultation we carried out when we moved premises. I should add that I work for Brook Manchester, a free, confidential young people’s sexual health and advice service, and part of a national network of Brook centres http://www.brook.org.uk/.

We asked young people how they would improve sex and relationship education and one young women offered this evaluation of the SRE delivered in her school, “it’s just the birds and the bees, what’s that all about?”

Indeed, what is that about? I was surprised to see what feels like such an old fashioned and also oblique phrase still be used by young people today. I was certainly disappointed that this young person was receiving SRE that left her feeling so short changed.

Across the UK through it’s clinical services, its campaigning and lobbying work, and its outreach and education work, Brook and its partners are facilitating a shift away from SRE which leaves young people feeling ill equipped to navigate modern relationships and lacking the skills to negotiate safer, more pleasurable sex.

We want to see programmes that offer a broad range of both skills and knowledge being embedded into the curriculum and beyond. We have seen at first hand how they can develop a young persons’ confidence, their emotional resilience and their ability to reflect upon risk and the impact this might have on their life.

We want to move from comments like that to this resounding evaluation by one young women of a programme Brook Manchester delivered in a school non-attenders’ project.

“I learnt not be ashamed of my sexuality.”

I think I can hang up my hat when all young people describe their SRE in terms like that!

Jackie Behan
Outreach Manager
Brook Manchester
Email: jackieb@brookmanchester.org.uk

Final Report of Six Years of Research into Abstinence

A six-year study the final report of which is available to download as a pdf from http://www.mathematica-mpr.com/publications/PDFs/impactabstinence.pdf examined the behaviour of more than 2,000 American teenagers and found that sexual abstinence education does not work and says that the $1.5 billion spent by the US government to promote abstinence over the past ten years has been a waste of money. The study was conducted by Mathematica Policy Research, a nonpartisan firm, which conducts policy research and surveys in healthcare, education, welfare, employment, nutrition, and early childhood.

The study (http://www.mathematica-mpr.com/welfare/abstinence.asp ) followed the sexual behaviour of teenagers from a cross-section of communities in Florida, Wisconsin, Mississippi and Virginia. Their average age was 16. Half of the sample who had received abstinence only education displayed the same sexual behaviour as those who had received sex education in which contraception was discussed. Teenagers from both sample groups had the same average age for their first sexual experience: 14.9 years, and one quarter in both groups had had sex with three or more partners. (Guardian, 16 April 2007, p3; Times, 16 April 2007, p30)

BBC Radio 5 Live Debate

At 11.15 last Saturday night Anita Rani's programme on BBC 5 Live, Barbara Hastings-Asatourian was invited to join a phone in debate alongside the radically opposing views expressed by Family Rights Activist Lynette Burrows, famous for being investigated by the police after expressing views perceived by some to be homophobic, against gay couple adoptions.

The feature had been sparked by a piece of today's news all spectacularly reporting the story of a 14 year old student from Paignton Community Sports College, in Devon, herself 6 months pregnant, who had been invited to talk to a group of friends who had become pregnant. She and her parents are reported to be concerned that college used her inappropriately. The school has not yet been able to comment, as it was half term. The papers took the opportunity to sensationalise the vulnerable teenager's situation.

Ms Burrows very early on in the discussion expressed the tired yet extreme argument that teenagers are getting pregnant to get a free house and benefits. Barbara Hastings-asatourian who has been carrying out research into teenage pregnancy now for many years, and who with Julie Wray evaluated the implementation of the Teenage Pregnancy Strategy in Manchester and Salford, knows that is just not the case. Over half of all teenage pregnancies end in abortion, not a strategy for gaining benefits and housing, but one which would be resolved by better sex education and better access to contraceptive services suitable for teenagers. And of those younger teenagers who keep their babies many stay at home with their families, unable to claim benefits in their own right. As they get older the social housing offered to teenage parents is far from ideal, and benefits are no panacea, teenage parents are at risk of poverty, poor nutrition, social isolation, poor housing and poor health.

Teenage pregnancies nationally in the under 18s are down by 11.1% from baseline figures in 1998. In 1998 in England there were 41,089 (rate 46.6 per thousand under 18's), and in 2004 this figure was 39,350 (rate 41.5 per thousand under 18's) the national teenage pregnancy strategy has a target to reduce teenage pregnancy by 50% by the year 2010.

In areas of social deprivation teenagers' aspirations for their futures are known to be less ambitious than their peers in more advantaged areas, and teenage pregancy rates are higher in those areas. That is why the government's teenage pregnancy strategy is so focussed on raising aspirations, preventing pregnancy, getting young parents to stay in education, or return to education, to seek really good childcare and to improve their chances of having a decent lifestyle in the future for themselves and for their children.

In Devon in 2004 there were 405 teenage pregnancies, a rate of 31.2 per thousand under 18's and 46.4% of those ended in abortion, this total is 5.3% less than the 1998 baseline. Devon's teenage pregnancy rate as a whole is below the national average of 41 per thousand, although Paignton Community College provides for 2 deprived areas, and so the teenage pregnancy rate there is slightly higher than average.

However, Paignton Community College is recognised for its positive contribution to teenage sexual health in these difficult circumstances. It has a teenage information and advice centre, Tic Tac, which offers students access to a variety of health professionals. The centre deals with a range of health issues, including contraception and advice, and was highlighted as an example of good practice in Ofsted’s report on Sex and Relationships Education. The Tic-Tac centre includes sexual health advice. The main driver for the centre is to raise attainment, as young people are better able to focus on learning when they are free from health concerns.

The centre is widely publicised through the school’s PSHE programme. Issues raised in PSHE are often followed up in individual appointments. The centre is not a first-aid facility, it provides advice rather than medical treatment. Although broad-based, the majority of young people using Tic-Tac are seeking advice on sexual health issues. Feedback suggests Tic-Tac has led to a much more positive view of health professionals among students. Older students, in particular, are now much more likely to seek advice from mainstream health services.

One of the things the press reported today was the teenager's concern that she may have influenced her peers to decide which way to choose. That is unlikely to be the case as according to national statistics, between 50-60% of teenagers who get pregnant under 16 have an abortion. The figures from the teenager’s friends although not scientifically generalisable, seem to mirror the national trend. So she should be reassured that although she has shared her experiences with her peers, which incidentally is known to be really helpful, she isn’t responsible for their decisions or the national trend.

Peer education is a tried and tested way of educating teenagers, it’s not without its problems, and generally involves training. Sharing experiences is also useful – we shouldn’t be afraid of real experiences – for some people having a baby is a positive thing, for some it perceived to be a way of escaping a miserable life or of finding love in an otherwise hostile world, for some it's none of those. We are all very different and our choices are based on many factors.

Contraception Education have developed fact sheets and resources on www.contraceptioneducation.com to inform people. We have written resources like Contraception the Board Game to get people to think through their choices. BUT sex education just doesn’t exist in all schools in the way Lynette Burrows described on the 5 Live Programme. It is inconsistent around the country, and cannot be judged in that way until it measureable nationally and a statutory part of the national curriculum.

There is a campaign at present to make PSHE statutory, because until PSHE is taken as seriously as the other academic subjects, it loses out in competition with those subjects. Sex education can be exciting and brilliant if it is delivered in a positive environment by teachers who are passionate and properly trained to do it.

Barbara was keen to point out the situation in Western Europe where sex education is part of the curriculum. Countries like France, Sweden and the Netherlands do sex and relationships education , it is taken seriously, it is not taught alongside morals. People in those countries don’t seem to get heated about it, they don't hold up implementation of sex education with erroneous moral arguments. Instead they promote positive loving relationships, and instill a sense of responsibility for each other, including the importance of getting tested (without fear of stigma). In fact they get on with it and they get results, just what we need here in the UK.

In the phone in were three contributors, a father of two who felt that state benefits encourage teenage sex and teenage pregnancy, a 15 year old who felt sex education in school was lacking, and an older man who was in hios 20's before he learned anything about sex. The mixed bag of debate made for a very interesting and stimulating half hours discussion.

Contraception Education

Should sex education be a statutory subject in schools?
Last October the Institute for Public Policy Research called for PSHE (Personal Social and Health Education), including SRE (Sex and Relationships Education), to be made a statutory subject in all schools in England and Wales. Read Contraception Education's news report on http://www.contraceptioneducation.com/nitem.asp?news_id=300
The recommendation comes in a report called 'Freedom's Orphans: Raising Youth in a Changing World' published in November 2006. The report shows that British teenagers are the most sexually active in Europe and are third least likely to use a condom during underage sex. Britain has the highest rate of births to teenagers in Western Europe, with an average of 26 live births per 1,000 women aged 15 to 19, and the sexual health of British teenagers is considerably poorer than it was a decade ago.
The report recommends that pupils should be taught about the importance of contraception in their last year of primary school, and that a full range of contraception should be made easily available to teenagers. Other recommendations include services for parents to be made available at schools, and action to reduce the numbers of teenagers becoming pregnant for a second time. Further details are available at the IPPR website .

But should all young people get the same sex education?
A study published in the Journal of Health Psychology Vol. 12, No. 1, 179-183 (2007) concludes that pupils should be taught sex and relationships education according to their experience. The survey by researchers at Coventry University of 3,800 13 to 16-year-olds found that their sex life is so varied that safer sex cannot be encouraged with one standard model. A quarter had had sex and most had not used condoms the first time. Fifty-five per cent had used contraception every time. The study suggests that 'streaming' sex education lessons could be achieved by teaching in after school youth groups and by using sex education CDs that pupils can use privately. However, the researchers conclude that whole class teaching may be appropriate for advice on using condoms and where to get them from and they recommend that condoms should be available in all schools. An abstract of the study report is available:http://hpq.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/12/1/179 Guardian, 9 February 2007, p13; Telegraph, 9 February 2007, p2


And what about the age of consent?
The age of consent different all over the world. See http://www.avert.org/aofconsent.htm. It ranges from 12 to 18, and different laws are still applied to different sexual preferences. It makes me wonder why when as a health professional I know that it is hard for some young people to receive safe sex messages because some young people are afraid to say they are sexually active in case they get into trouble with the law.

The law in the UK is quite complicated. On my Resources page I have looked the law and sex in the UK http://www.contraceptioneducation.com/sdays.asp?news_id=20

In an interview with the Independent on 15th February, Matthew Waites, lecturer in sociology at University of Glasgow and author of 'The Age of Consent:Young People, Sexuality and Citizenship', says that the current law on the age of consent does not work and needs to be lowered. He argues that the law criminalises young people and creates a climate of denial among parents and some professionals, which prevents young people from seeking advice and assistance about sexual health and sexual behaviour. (Independent Education, 15 Feb 2007, p4)