Not Yet Good Enough…
You’re probably already familiar with the recent Ofsted Summary of this name, presenting key findings from the 2013 PSHE education report, but have you considered how you might ensure that your school doesn’t fall into the Ofsted ‘requires improvement/inadequate’ 40%?
R U Different? could be the answer. Over 100 new schools working with us from September 2013 certainly think so.
Ofsted states that while most pupils ‘understood the dangers to health of tobacco and illegal drugs [they] were less aware of the physical and social damage associated with alcohol misuse, including personal safety.*
R U Different? has learned that while the peer group perception (Year 9’s) is that more than half of their year group is smoking, the actual recorded statistic is that almost 90% of students are not smoking at all!
Ofsted found that SRE education required improvement in over one third of schools; in secondary schools they record that there is too much emphasis on ‘the mechanics of reproduction, and too little on relationships…understanding of healthy sexual relationships, dealing with emotions and staying safe.’*
R U Different? enables schools to discover exactly what knowledge, concerns and understanding students have around Sex & Relationships, enabling schools to deliver exactly the information required to enable young people to make healthy choices and know where to go for practical help.
A north west based local authority cites R U Different? as the major contributory factor in a 27% reduction in teenage pregnancy, saving the Public Health department over £900,000.
e-Safety
Ofsted discovered that students understood the importance of applying security settings on social networking sites, but did not always know how to set them or had bothered to do so.*
This ties in with our own findings that most young people (aged 13-14) believe that the majority of their peers (68%) have met with a complete stranger following an online discussion. This is a considerable step up from the recorded reality of 32% of pupils who told us that they actually had met up with someone they knew only online. However, we do know that reality will progress towards perception and if this is not addressed, more and more children will make risky decisions that could have been prevented.
Only by defeating the power of perception through sharing the reality can we overcome the tendency of young people to ‘follow the crowd’, when in fact, in most cases, they are already comfortably within the crowd.
This Autumn, four new local authorities and over 100 new schools will be giving their young people the opportunity to see the reality of their peer group’s behaviours. Carefully designed interventions will enable the PSHE teachers in each school to led discussions, provide support and encourage their students to make wiser choices around risky behaviours, meeting the Ofsted requirement for pupils to develop the ‘ability to assess and manage risk appropriately and keep themselves safe’**
Quality PSHE? It could soon become the Norm.
*Ofsted Report: Not Yet Good Enough, May 2013
** Ofsted Inspection Framework for PSHE