Sex in the classroom

Sex education has changed dramatically in recent years ? but more initiatives may still be necessary

Sex and relationship education (SRE) practitioners won?t have found the survey released by UK student website StudentBeans at the beginning of June comforting reading. Of the 5,000 UK university students surveyed, two-thirds of those who were sexually active reported having unprotected sex; only 27 per cent said they always used condoms. Respondents? answers to the quality of SRE they had received at school go some way towards explaining the other figures, namely, 45 per cent said they wished they?d had better sex education.

?Sex education at school was pretty awful,? wrote one respondent. ?It was nearly all really basic biology stuff that we already knew and nothing about the relationship, trust or confidence side, which I think really could have helped. The boys never really took it seriously and, as a result, it became a bit of a weekly joke. The teacher didn?t seem comfortable talking to us about it either, which didn?t help.?

Experiences like that beg the question as to whether the key messages of SRE lessons are getting through, and what should be in the curriculum to make it relevant to young people?s experience. Scottish education has sought to tackle those issues over the past decade. In 2002, the Scottish Executive began the process of reforming the SRE curriculum, publishing and consulting on a draft strategy calling for a ?broad and holistic approach to sexual health?. The result was ?Respect and Responsibility?, Scotland?s first national sexual health strategy and action plan, published in January 2005. However, stakeholders in the voluntary sector were felt let down by the process. According to Children in Scotland, the national agency for voluntary, statutory and professional organisations working with children and their families, ?Respect and Responsibility? failed to make provision for inter-agency working and collaboration with relevant charities, and did not take into account the particular needs of specific groups, such as young people in areas of deprivation or looked-after children. Insufficient resources were allocated to support schools and teachers to meet the strategy?s aims. Perhaps most damagingly, Children in Scotland said: ?The strategy does not embrace the major cultural shift reflected in the draft strategy.?

The incentive, then, for a more holistic approach had been lost.

Those concerns were borne out in a 2007 NHS Health Scotland report that found that best practice in SRE was patchy on the ground, and called for a more comprehensive approach to sex education that dedicated more time to examining broader themes around relationships, personal empowerment and equality. In some areas, as many as a third of schools were developing their own SRE classes ?in-house?, while others availed themselves of ?off the shelf ? programmes, such as NHS Scotland?s SHARE curriculum.?The report found that ?concern existed about the lack of high-quality training for staff and the brevity of available courses,? and that many schools were in fact unaware of which teachers had received SRE training, and to what level. LGBT pupils often felt excluded because ?few schools had the capacity/skills to deal with issues of inclusion competently?.?A lack of multi-agency working meant that teachers rarely were given the opportunity to draw fully on the expertise of health workers.

The Scottish Government?s response was to publish in 2009 the first experiences and outcomes guidance for relationships, sexual health, and parenthood as part of the development of Curriculum for Excellence (CfE). These highlighted the broad range of issues that were considered key components of the SRE curriculum; on leaving education, young people should be able to ?understand the importance of being cared for and caring for others in relationships?; ?recognise that power can exist within relationships and can be used positively as well as negatively?; and ?understand my own body?s uniqueness, my developing sexuality, and that of others?.?The new guidelines spelt out the attempt to change Scotland?s SRE teaching so that it properly equipped young people for the full range of experiences and challenges that sexual maturity brings.

For Doortje Braeken, Senior Adviser on Adolescents at the International Planned Parenthood Federation, this latter shift in focus is welcome. ?We think it should be comprehensive,? she says of modern sex education. ?It should not just be about biology ? where your ovaries are ? it should include all aspects of sexuality and sexual reproductive health and rights. It should be about individual issues like relationships, self-esteem, and being able to communicate.? Seven years on, Children in Scotland also feels that progress has been made. ?One of the points that we?ve made repeatedly is that the biological mechanics of it are one thing, but the whole context is important,? says Marion Macleod, senior policy officer at the organisation. ?I think that has been taken on board in curricular terms.?

Dr John Lloyd, policy adviser at the Personal Social Health & Economic Education Association, underlines the importance of broadening the SRE curriculum, suggesting that minority sexualities have rarely, if ever, been properly covered. Contemporary issues, such as the ways in which young people can be put at risk through technology, also need to enter the curriculum in a meaningful way; Lloyd cites ?sexting? and the pressure put on some girls to send explicit images of themselves as two areas where young people need to be better informed of the risks and how to protect themselves.

?It?s not that I don?t think people should learn the facts, but they should also understand how sometimes sexuality is complex, and get a better understanding that there are still a lot of violations of sexual rights,? Braeken adds. ?Young people should understand that it?s not just about the facts of life. We want to have a really strong focus on things other than what?s ?under the bonnet?.?People think that if I know where my ovaries are, I?m going to have a good relationship ? but it doesn?t really work that way.?

Experts claim there is further work to be done in updating what is taught in SRE classes, however. Both Lloyd and Braeken suggest that the SRE curriculum presents an opportunity to delve into wider issues around confidence and decision making amongst young people. Pupils need to understand ?how much they are forced through the whole issue of body image,? says Braeken, and how that can tie in with life-threatening medical conditions like anorexia. ?At the end of the day, it is about empowerment,? she adds, but not just for girls: ?I think we shouldn?t forget boys as well; they can sometimes find themselves in a very complex position, because they have to show their masculinity.?

Children in Scotland?s Macleod takes this even further ? she thinks more connections need to be made between what?s taught in SRE classes and the potential impact it has on young people?s lives. ?The present Scottish Government is developing the first national parenting strategy, and the connection between sexual education, relationship education and parenting is not always well made. Certainly, that aspect of relationships is not particularly well addressed other than in the mechanics of contraception,? she says.

Giving evidence recently at the Scottish Parliament?s Education and Culture Committee inquiry into the educational attainment of looked-after children, Macleod says she wasn?t surprised to hear suggestions that young people in care, an at-risk group in terms of teenage pregnancy, should be given parenting classes as a preventative early intervention. The idea is sound, she says ? but logically, the inclusion of parenting in SRE shouldn?t stop there.

?While clearly that?s important,? Macleod says of parenting classes in the care system, ?most of the young people in school today will be parents at some point in their life ? maybe not immediately, but at some point in the future ? so the connection between families, relationships and sexual education I don?t think is always that clearly made. That?s why we strongly support informed choice; it?s not the only option people have in life, to get involved in a relationship that ends up with them being a young and quite often unsupported parent.?

Any expansion in the range of topics covered in SRE classes should be backed up with additional resources, both in teacher training and time in the curriculum.??Teachers need to be confident and competent when approaching sex education classes,? says Lloyd; they should have access to the latest materials, and be supported by a framework that allows them to bring outside experts into the classroom without being supplanted entirely.

While she recognises the need to provide teachers with the proper support in the classroom, Braeken sees a positive change in the way sex education classes are approached.??I think there?s been a lot of change in the way teachers communicate with young people. They want to engage with young people and talk about things that interest them.?

Linking elements of the SRE curriculum to wider social issues shores up its relevance, and makes it easier to communicate with students ? and helps teachers ease into what can be an uncomfortable topic. ?I think if you can talk about things like the politics around sexuality, that gives [students] a lot of linkages to what?s happening in society.?It doesn?t have to be about the sexual act; that?s the terrible thing about the term ?sex education? ? people think it?s about the sexual act. If we are able to start talking about gender issues, that is much easier for teachers to start talking about.?

The question remains, are the wider themes outlined in the 2009 CfE guidelines being applied? The issue hasn?t been revisited on the same scale as the 2007 NHS Health Scotland report, although Education Scotland school inspection reports published since then frequently list health and wellbeing outcomes as an area for improvement. Curriculum materials are being reviewed; a Scottish Government spokesman told Holyrood: ?Curriculum for Excellence covers sexual health, relationships and parenthood education as part of health and wellbeing education. All of this is done at an age that is appropriate and relevant to the stage of education for the child or young person.?Many schools will refer to the SHARE (Sexual Health and Relationships Education/Safe, Happy and Responsible) programme for young people in years S2-S4, which was developed in consultation with teachers, students, parents and health professionals. The programme encourages frank discussions around varied scenarios, some quite complex. SHARE is currently being reviewed to ensure that it complements Curriculum for Excellence and the most up-to-date advice and evidence.?

Unlike the rest of the UK, there is still no statutory requirement on schools to provide SRE education. That, however, doesn?t necessarily mean that teaching is more effective in the rest of the UK than in Scotland. ?The statutory requirements in England, Wales and Northern Ireland were introduced years ago; but if you were to look at the latest round of Ofsted reports, you?d find that some schools are still not meeting the required standard,? says Lloyd.

In terms of the effectiveness of SRE courses, Scottish teenage pregnancy rates have dropped in recent years, although the UK?s rate collectively remains amongst the highest in Western Europe. International examples also offer an insight into the impact of effective SRE. Braeken draws attention to experiences in Finland and Estonia, where SRE programmes, delivered alongside comprehensive youth services, brought down not only teen pregnancy rates, but abortion rates as well. ?In Estonia, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, authorities started with the support of Finland and Sweden to introduce a good sex education curriculum into schools, hand in hand with youth services. The abortion rates dropped very rapidly.?

Nonetheless, Braeken warns against making the link between good provision of SRE in schools and the teenage pregnancy rate; cultural factors that are much harder to control, and go far beyond the school curriculum, are equally, if not more important.??People sometimes think that sex education at school is a magic bullet. That?s of course not true, it has to be part of a whole change.?Trying to understand why young girls get pregnant so young ? I don?t think, to be honest, it?s because they don?t know about contraception. I don?t think that?s the issue. People think the more information we offer on contraception, the more likely young people are going to use it.?

That isn?t always the case. Macleod agrees that there is a law of diminishing returns that applies to teaching about contraception, and that more needs to be done to understand why that is. ?As an organisation, I think we are very clear that we thought that there needs to be much better education about sexual behaviour, but that that needs to be in the context of finding out why people under 16 are engaging in sexual behaviour, why sometimes they do so in a risky way, and what are the features of the young people who are engaging in such activity,? she says. ?Are there issues there that we need to address that are not necessarily just about giving people more information?

?When I worked in local authority social work, we had a very worryingly high proportion of the young women who came out of the care system who either already had a baby or were pregnant, and I don?t think it was that no one had taught them the mechanics of contraception. I think it was that there were a lot of other things, a lot of other issues unaddressed either in school or in the care system.?

In her native Netherlands ? which enjoys one of the lowest teenage pregnancy rates in Europe ? Braeken credits a greater openness around topics to do with sex, particularly between young people and their parents, that she believes owes more to the national character than what?s taught in schools. ?Sex education is only a little, little piece of the puzzle,? she says. ?It?s much more an attitude that you are open about it and understand why you have sex, when do you say no to sex, whether you are being pressurised, things like that.? The media is another factor. ?We don?t have a newspaper like the Sun where there?s always a naked girl inside.?

earthquake bay area clear channel drexel dale george will obama birth certificate nick cannon