Bucks Youth Summit 2024 – Sex Education: Do Better
Format
- The Sex Education: Do Better conversation space tucked-away in a quiet space of The Waterside called the Norman Bragg bar area.
- This conversation space centred on Relationships and Sex Education (RSE), and was hosted by a sexual health charity called Brook.
Brook deliver education and outreach activities around sexual health and wellbeing in Buckinghamshire. - A young person who is a Youth Voice Executive Committee member co-facilitated the space with Brook. Her name is Laura.
- The Space had 2 large stations and a pin board. Brook staff Katherine, Joy and Nigel had 6 main questions that they asked throughout the 30-minute time slot and got young people to write their ideas and innovations on post-it notes and we stuck them to the pin boards.
- 35 young people visited The Sex Education: Do Better Space across the day.
What did young people say?
The key messages that young people shared in The Sex Education: Do Better Space 2024 are:
- We think that RSE in school is okay, but could do with improvement
- We want more regular RSE sessions – one a week would be great
- We want to be taught in smaller groups. This is to create a better learning environment and would mean we can explore topics in more detail and ask questions without feeling embarrassed
- We want to be taught by an outside agency or by a specific teacher within the school that has been specially trained
- We want schools to stop using teachers that don’t enjoy the subject and stop using outdated materials
- We want schools to start being more inclusive and use RSE professions to run the sessions lessons are generally fine.
You can read Brook’s full write up of the findings from this conversation space.
So what?
- Brook are going to share some of the findings on their social media!
- Brook and Buckinghamshire Council’s PSHE lead are looking to develop training for professionals based on the findings from this conversation space. This training will be available to all teachers in the county who are involved in PSHE lessons, including RSE.
- The UK government are hosting a consultation around new draft guidance for schools on RSE. Once finalised, this document will guide schools on how to deliver RSE. Between 16 May and 11 July 2024, young people and adults can respond and share your views on the draft guidance at a national level via their online survey!
Go to the RSE guidance consultation page on gov.uk
- If you’re interested in learning more about young people’s perspectives on Relationships and Sex Education, check out the Sex Education Forum’s Young People’s RSE Poll 2024. This was a nationwide poll of young people’s experiences of Relationships and Sex Education (RSE) in schools shows quality is improving, but a lack of consistent inclusivity drives many to online sources for information.
Facilitator’s quote
“I just wanted to say a huge THANKYOU to [the Youth Voice Bucks] team for planning and holding such an excellent event!
It was a brilliant opportunity for us to talk to young people about how RSE / PSHCE is actually delivered in their schools and how they feel about that. Once the information is all collated and fed back I am sure there will eyebrows raised and changes planned. Then we need to get back to the young people and let them know they WERE listened to and we made changes wherever we could.
Laura, who was helping us today did an excellent job of making sure we ran to time, please pass on our thanks again to her!”
– Joy, Education Coordinator at Brook and facilitator in the Sex Education, Do Better conversation space.