Case Studies

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Case Study: School C

The school is a popular 13-18 specialist arts college of larger than average size. A large majority of the students are White British and the proportion eligible for free school meals is below national average. Student's attainment on entry to the school is broadly average. The percentage of students with learning difficulties and/or disabilities is just below the national average and the proportion of statements of special educational needs is well below.

PSHE delivery

The coordinator of PSHE is an excellent practitioner strongly believing in the importance of the subject but her challenge being responsibility for three other key subjects and initiatives in the school. Additionally tutor delivery time for PSHE has been reduced to two, half hour sessions. Extra time is given to Peer Education and specialist delivery of theatre in education or presentations by agencies. PSHE is currently delivered by all form tutors and delivery can be deemed patchy in places. The school currently does not have access to a school nurse.

Sex and relationships education programme.

The coordinator has worked extremely closely with the SRE Consultant for the past five years on developing the PSHE and specifically training Peer Educators from year 12 and 13 to deliver SRE including work on contraception, STI's and relationships. The lesson they delivered to support the SRE programme covered condom demonstrations, STI's, relationship work and access to support services. The year 10 programme was supplemented by a Theatre in education production on teenage pregnancy.

The Social Norms survey was first completed in October 2007 by year 9, 10 students. Peer educators delivered the vast majority of the SRE lessons. Messages were devised by Peer educators and displayed on the schools intranet system. All students could access these messages as individuals logged onto the computer system.

The second questionnaire was completed at the end of the summer term 2008 on delivery of the SRE programme.

Data Analysis

The three main sources of information about sex and relationships for young people in year 9 was selected as Peer educators with a rise in response of 22.7%, then parents although falling by 14.9% and then school nurse again falling by 4.2%.

In year 10 parents were the most popular sources rising by 9.3%followed by Nurses, specially trained and peer educators. There was a fall of 2.4% of form tutors.

Changes in attitude on completion of the first questionnaire to the second were more significant in year 10 than year 9. In year 9 there was a 23% shift upwards in student response to 'it's ok to have sex U16 if both partners are ready and have talked about it'. There was a slight shift of 2% upwards wanting to wait until they were in a committed relationship.

Interestingly in year 10 there was a significant rise by 17% in response to the statement 'You should wait until you are over 16 before having sex. This has not been the case in any of the other schools or year groups. Could this have been as a result of the Theatre in education production around teenage pregnancy together with the peer education delivery? There was a rise of 2.8% wanting to wait for a committed relationships and a 7.2%rise in response to 'using condom and pill'.

There is a significant rise in the number of students saying they have had sexual intercourse from year 9 to year 10. 8.1% by the end of year 9 to 19.9% in year 10.

Again all students over estimate by a large amount the numbers of students who they think will have had sexual intercourse by the end of the year.

"there was a significant rise by 17% in response to the statement 'You should wait until you are over 16 before having sex'."