PSHE
Bringing PSHE to life
Schools in
of introducing pupils to all of the issues covered by We are also continuing the provision of NHS Teen
the PSHE curriculum. NHS Teen LifeCheck is a free LifeCheck outside lessons including in year assemblies
Wakefield have
interactive online quiz offering lifestyle advice to and drop-in sessions.
12 to 15-year-olds. Using the quiz in PSHE lessons Encouraging young people in schools to become
with reassurance from teachers – and the promise of peer educators is also a key aim this academic year and
been using
confidentiality – has helped to kick-start more detailed we are working closely with the UK Youth Parliament
discussions. and Young People’s Services to achieve this. Our goal
the NHS Teen
It guides young people through a set of multiple- is to ensure it is fully embedded with as many young
choice questions and then gives them tailored advice people across the district as possible.
LifeCheck within their PSHE
on how they can take small steps to improve their The use of NHS Teen LifeCheck in PSHE lessons
lifestyles by setting goals and signposting to national has been a success in the Wakefield district, but
and local services for further support. any school across the country could follow suit by
lessons. Wakefield Council’s
It covers a range of issues including physical contacting their local authority or primary care trust
activity, nutrition, solvents and illegal drugs, sexual LifeCheck team. The PSHE lead in the school can
Paul Makin explains
health, alcohol, and smoking. Additionally, it focuses on then develop a delivery plan that suits the needs of the
young people’s emotional wellbeing – with advice and school, in effect tailoring the NHS LifeCheck tool to
top tips about stress, bullying, relationships, personal sit comfortably with the school’s wider strategy. This
safety, and self-esteem. may also involve liaising with school nurses and other
SHE IS a fundamental part of the It has allowed our students to reflect on their health partners in the school.
P
curriculum and may become statutory. without having to reply to a teacher. The questions NHS Teen LifeCheck is one of the initiatives that
As a result, teachers need to look at how are often posed in the second person, such as: “Your supports the Children and Young People’s public health
this expansive and diverse subject can friend tells you that they’re being bullied. What do you programme, which came from Healthy Lives, Brighter
be planned into lessons. do?” This helps explore the pupil’s attitudes and values Futures: A Strategy for Children and Young People’s
In the Wakefield district, we have around health behaviours, while helping to decrease Health (published in February 2009). This joint
focused on bringing the curriculum resistance and embarrassment. Department of Health and Department for Children,
to life by taking PSHE and making the curriculum as In the Wakefield district, we have also established Schools and Families strategy outlines the government’s
interactive as possible. a LifeCheck team. Employed by NHS Wakefield vision for improving health and wellbeing outcomes for
A crucial element of our strategy has been to District’s Community Health Services, they offer all young people and supporting a reduction in health
collaborate with the Primary Care Trust, NHS one-to-one sessions for individuals who request extra inequalities. It also complements the aims outlined in
Wakefield District. As part of this activity we support. Wakefield local authority is unique as it is the White Paper Your child, Your Schools, Our Future:
have been working closely with schools such as the only area in the country that has invested in a Building a 21st Century Schools System. SecEd
Hemsworth Arts and Community College, which LifeCheck team.
has put a number of measures in place, including To date, 600 students across the district have logged • Paul Makin is service director for schools and lifelong
specialist lesson plans and the use of multi-agency onto the website during lessons, adding to the 100,000 learning at Wakefield Council.
drop-in centres. teens who have accessed it nationally. In a typical
Here teens can talk to specialist staff, such as lesson, students are introduced to the quiz and given a
Further information
school nurses, sexual health nurses, smoking cessation short presentation about how to use it before navigating • To use NHS Teen LifeCheck, visit www.
workers, Connexions staff, safer schools police officers, their way through the questions. They are then asked teenlifecheck.co.uk
and education welfare officers. to evaluate the results and reflect on what they have • To find out more about the service, visit www.
Some schools have also developed “alternative learnt. dh.gov.uk/lifecheck
curriculum days”, where the normal timetable is As the year continues, schools across the Wakefield • To read the White Paper, visit www.dcsf.gov.
suspended and students follow activities based around district will tailor the use of the quiz to their setting, uk/21stcenturyschoolssystem Check it out: Teenagers gather around the
PSHE and citizenship. including special and community schooling, meaning • To see the Wakefield NHS LifeCheck site, visit NHS LifeCheck stand at a launch event held
We have also used NHS Teen LifeCheck as a way hundreds more students will take the quiz in the area. www.wakefielddistrict.nhs.uk/lifecheck at Leeds Rugby Club
Notes and jottings Independent thinking
A dramatic approach? No two years are ever the same
WE HEAR a lot about teenage mothers and we have They are perfect for English – with all those depictions ANOTHER NEW school year has begun. People and thoroughly enjoying themselves, be it in drama,
all worked with them in schools, but what about of scenes of Shakespeare, Tennyson, Keats and others. who do not work in schools often suppose that it musicals, comedy, dance, improvisations, or concerts.
teenage fathers, many of whom fall off the rails? There’s a lot of classical civilisation there too. And as is monotonous being involved in an ever-repeating Earlier in the summer holiday, our orchestra had
Well, talented drama educator Jim Pope – part- for the Atwood reading, well, when we study a novel cycle of school years. undertaken a tour in Italy and they very much enjoyed
time social inclusion manager at National Youth why don’t we dramatise it and put music to it? In fact, no two school years are ever the same. Not working together intensively and performing. Many
Theatre (NYT) – did some work with fathers aged Atwood is such an intelligent writer and such a only are pupils all wonderfully individual, but many schools engage in such musical and sporting tours
under 21 at HMP Rochester. “One of them was only polymath that she covers almost every curriculum return from the long summer holiday having grown up abroad and they provide valuable experiences and
15 with three kids,” Jim told me. “Some are in touch subject (a lot of science, for instance) in her books so significantly in some way, or having developed new lessons for life for the pupils who take part.
with their children and others not.” He finds them a you have to crash through subject barriers to make passions and interests. Thanks to our ever watchful Several Duke of Edinburgh’s Award
very mixed group “largely forgotten by society”. sense of them anyway. I think there’s a case for political masters we also return to find new expeditions also took place during the
He has developed what he learned at much more curricular cross-fertilisation and regulatory requirements, new initiatives, vacation. Hiking for three days through
Rochester into a play called Fathers shared learning-for-its-own-sake school revised examination syllabuses, and the damp, mist and murkiness of
Inside, scripted by Philip Osment, which trips. Any chance, given the “creativity many other such changes. the Brecon Beacons is not every
is running at London’s Roundhouse agenda” and the freedom from key In recent weeks, the media have been teenager’s idea of fun, but it can
until this weekend. The cast is a stage 3 SATs? obsessed with examinations – endlessly be a life-changing experience and
mixture of NYT members and debating the value of various examinations certainly provides an opportunity
“those who have some experience Still on the subject of books, and whether a top grade today is the same to develop patience and optimism.
of the criminal justice system”. do read Hands Up! by Oenone as a top grade 20 years ago. League Patience and optimism are
Jim and his colleagues took the Crossley-Holland published by tables have been compiled – all following undoubtedly a prerequisite for some
finished play into HMP Rochester to John Murray. It’s a diaristic account different and confusing principles. One of the other holiday activities which
perform it for inmates. “The men just of her second year of teaching at newspaper had schools topping the GCSE groups of our pupils undertake. Each
sat there gobsmacked,” he said with Harris Academy, south London, tables with over 820 points as the average year a party of 6th-formers sets off to
sad pride. “They said we have really through the Teach First scheme and candidate score. Given that an A* achieves only Romania for two weeks to work with
captured what the experience of being a developed out of columns she wrote 58 points, I was initially perplexed – but children and adolescents with SEN on
young father in prison is like.” about teaching for The Guardian. then I remembered that Diplomas such as a residential project. The scheme is
All food for thought when we encounter Fine writer she certainly is (although ICT are worth four grades each and things ground-breaking as it involves working
in our classes confused boy children (and I worry a bit about an Oxford English became a little clearer. alongside a team of Romanian students
let’s not pretend they’re anything else) graduate who has to thank her father Much of my own time has been spent who have undertaken their own
who have accidentally become fathers. for putting the commas in) and her dealing with the consequences of aberrant community action project. Art, music
book is elegantly readable. results in one or two subjects from the and drama activities are organised and
I caught the tail end of the Waterhouse She is clearly a gifted teacher examination boards and reassuring pupils strong bonds develop.
exhibition at the Royal Academy in too, although eventually, after much that nine or 10 A* grades and then a C Meanwhile, other year 11 pupils from
London last week – it closes on Sunday agonising as the book proceeds, she left grade in one subject does not necessarily many different schools in Southwark were
(September 13). The critics slated it because Harris Academy because the disciplinary make sense. Meanwhile, according to taking part in a national pilot of a community
of John Waterhouse’s backward-looking challenge was beginning to make her ill. journalists, headteachers “fell out” as to the action and citizenship-based scheme. These
failure to be “of his time” and to paint like I was interested in her working methods too. relative worth of A levels, IB and pre-U. young people spent two weeks together, away
Monet or Degas, but I found it both attractive and I’m afraid I have never insisted that pupils begin However, let me start the year as I intend from London, engaging in outdoor activities, and
enlightening. And he was a fabulous technician. every lesson by writing its learning objective. to go on and focus on some of the many good then working together back at home to identify
I also went to St James’s, Piccadilly, for a I’m far too resistant to formulaic teaching for that. things which our young people are involved in, which challenges in their community and offering solutions.
dramatised, musical rehearsed reading (with the author Neither would I break a poem into fragments and are quite separate from public examinations. Our young people are our future and we need to
and three actors) of Margaret Atwood’s new novel teach it over several weeks so that students never As usual, I visited the Edinburgh Festival this celebrate the fact that many of them are involved in a
The Year of the Flood. Like most English specialists, really see the poem as a whole. August. Current and past pupils from our school are huge range of innovative and often altruistic activities
I have taught her work extensively to A level groups What price its shape, overall beauty and always involved in shows there, either with a London which are shaping their lives for the better. Sadly such
and a new Atwood novel is always a cause for glee. underlying horror? Still I suppose there’s more than youth theatre group or with friends from university. things are only rarely reported, while examinations
Both the exhibition and the performance set me one road to Nirvana. What an amazing wealth of talent, adventure, good dominate the media for weeks on end.
thinking about the narrow, compartmentalised, exam- humour, determination and sheer spunkiness is to be
driven way most of us approach subject teaching. • Susan Elkin is a freelance education journalist and found at the festival! Risk-taking in the best possible • Marion Gibbs is headmistress of the independent
Waterhouse’s paintings don’t stop at art history. former teacher. sense is to the fore and young people are learning a lot James Allen’s Girls’ School in London.
SecEd • September 10 2009 7
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