You might have noticed a recent increase in news stories regarding the sexual health of young people and Sex and Relationships Education in schools. For example, Brook, the sexual health charity, has made headlines in the past few weeks around research they conducted and released on this very subject.
'UK sex and relationships education fails to prepare young people for modern day life' is a study of over 2,000 14-18 year olds. The results showed that almost half (47%) of today's secondary school pupils say Sex and Relationships Education (SRE) doesn't cover what they really need to know about sex and 82% of young people say schools should listen to young people when shaping SRE.
And listening to young people is exactly what my campaign is about!
In July of this year, I started a campaign with Battlefront, a Channel 4 Education TV and online series. They give young people the support and help to campaign on key youth related issues, all over Britain. I am 18 and my campaign is for a change in the way sex and relationship education is taught in schools.
I am a trained and qualified Peer educator, which means I go into secondary schools and teach SRE to pupils aged 11-16. We find that young people teaching other young people about sex and relationships just makes sense. Young people don't want to talk about their private parts and sex lives to an adult 30 years their senior or to someone who will then teach them history, maths or whatever subject they double up in! They feel comfortable when someone closer to their own age is teaching them as they can relate to them, and they don't feel patronised or made to feel awkward or stupid. That why me and the team I work with get so much positive feedback from the young people we teach, who like the fact that a young, trained and qualified person is giving them the low down on such a sensitive and personal issue.
My campaign's main aim is to get peer-to-peer sex education included in the National Curriculum, and to do this I need to prove to the politicians in charge that young people really do want SRE peer-to-peer, and that they respond well to it. So, I am currently conducting my own research on around 1,000 young people. I'm assessing their thoughts on their current Sex and Relationships Education, then I'm teaching them a peer-led lesson. After that, I re-assess them specifically on what they thought about a young person leading the class, then compare their answers to see which teaching style they preferred.
Once I get my results in, I am going to present them to a range of organisations including the PSHE Association who have been advising me along the way. This is a real coup for the campaign as Sex and Relationships Education is usually taught within PSHE classes, so if peer-to-peer teaching was to make it on to the curriculum then it would be in this lesson!
Depending on what my research says, they will include it in their response they are writing to the Government for their Sex Education Review. That's right - Sex Ed is being reviewed and my research will (hopefully!) be considered within it.
I am pretty sure my research will come back and support my theory of how young people want their SRE and when it does, Government officials should to be taking my study seriously because 82% of young people want their say.
You can check out Shereece's work on her website, here: www.battlefront.co.uk/sex