Blindfish RSE

Today childline launched a new campaign (FAPZ) to help young people make sense of the powerful influence online porn can have on young people. I welcome any new or renewed effort to help tackle this issue. What ever adults personally think about adults consuming porn, it clearly is not meant for young people. Below is a tweet from Simon Blake (CEO of Brook) Agree @NSPCC we must talk about porn at home, school & community. Whatever you think about porn it is not place CYP should learn about sex — Simon Blake (@Simonablake) March 31, 2015 It is very worrying to hear Childline reporting high numbers of calls to their phone line where online porn is a key issue. And this will just be a tip of the iceberg of the influence porn is having. When I talk about Childline in high schools I have meet many young people who think its not for them because they aren't a child so they wont ring it. Such a shame.  However, the NSPCC could strengthen their...

Thoughts on how Relationship and Sex Educators may have to respond to the 50 Shades of Grey film with young people.  2 and a half years ago I wrote a review of the 50 Shades of Grey book from a relationship and sex educator perspective . Today I saw the film adaptation with the aim to do the same for the film. 1 in 10 young people have read the novel and I am confident even more will try and see the film. This film (at least in the immediate future) will have an impact on young peoples perspective of sex and relationships and I am keen that people who work with young people equip themselves to respond to questions and concerns this film might raise. Imagine being asked by a young person "why do people enjoy spanking?" "What is fetish?" What is BDSM" "Explain 50 shades of grey?" are we ready to answer young peoples questions? This film raises issue of consent, healthy/unhealthy relationships, BDSM sex, boundaries, communication and value in sex.  ...

Nearly 1 in 10 young people have read 50 Shades of Grey say relationships and sexual health education experts. Esteem Resource Network, a project of the charity ACET (AIDS Care, Education and Training) has more than 25 years of experience in delivering workshops to young people on issues related to self-esteem, relationships and sexual health. As part of a larger study, to be released later this year, a survey carried out by Esteem has found that almost 10% of young people report reading an explicit sex scene from 50 Shades of Grey. Unlike the adult market, this anonymous survey shows that male readership (12%) doubles that of than female readership (6%) amongst young people. More than 1,000 12-16 year olds were asked if, when and how they had encountered written and visual explicit sex scenes. The preliminary findings of the survey show that 67% of young people have seen explicit sex scenes, whilst 47% have encountered them in written form. Gareth Cheesman...

When I write a new lesson plan or activity  I always ask myself "how would my lesson impact someone if they had... - experienced sexual abuse - been pregnant - a member of their family or themselves  infected with HIV - been questioning their sexuality - never seriously considered sex before (and I've just added) - been through the fostering/adoption system " When a write new material I am usually  writing something that I hope I could use multiple times with multiple groups and possibly over multiple years. So whilst statistically it is unlikely that every class will have people for all the above questions. It is an almost 100% certainty that most of the materials I write will at some point be delivered to all of the above.  I believe we have to plan for the 20%, 1%, the 0.1% and the 0.01%. I may never happen but if it did I want to ensure all my materials have a positive impact for everyone regardless of what others pressures that may have on their life....

Today I am sharing a free resource I have made to help teenagers think about the type of images they are sharing online and by direct messages. I class this resource as in BETA, it is just my first attempt at making these images and I want to reshoot the photos. Get rid of the cluttered backgrounds and I need to find a male mannequin to use as well. You can find all the images I use at  Sexting Images Resources I have tested these images in a number of lessons for 14-15 year olds. The way I use them is getting the young people into small groups and asking them to put them in order from most risky images to share to least risky. They create a continuum of risk. Then we talk through a number of follow up questions.  Which images would it be ok to share on social network? Which images might be ok to share by direct message, such as snapchat or MMS? Which images should we never share? Which images do you think could get people into trouble with the police? Which ...

This week we got news that finally Michael Give has consented to provide some government guidance on SRE issues like consent, sexting, porn and partner violence. Michael is doing some thing very right consulting three key groups of the pshe association, Brook and the sec education forum. All three have a great appreciation of the key issues and I'm sure they will produce good recommendations. This guidance will be a great help to school. But Gove is still saying that the 2000 guidance will remain and this new guidance will be more of a suggestion. With Gove's consistent claim we should leave it to the  teachers to decide what they will teach. Putting aside the inconsistencies in provision for UK young people. This seems to be the opposite method Gove has been following for the rest of the curriculum. He has looked to standardise what all young people learn of academic subjects in an attempt to raise standards. A nobel cause, yet SRE does not appear to enjoy the same attention...

My view of the channel 4 show "Porn on the Brain" which is all about how teenegers might be being impact by watching porn online. I have just finished watching "Porn on the Brain"   (if you live outside UK Tunnel Bear can let you watch this) a Channel 4 British documentary by a previous editor of Loaded (lad mag) Martin Daubney . In this documentary Martin looks to try and find out what is the situation of porn and teenagers. Now sometimes the show becomes a little sensationalist with phrases like "The internet brought about the end of innocence" but behind some hype is some interesting stuff. With Martin spending 15 years of his life dedicated to (soft core) pornography with his work in loaded his perspective on the porn industry is not naive, he describes himself as an "wanking expert". Early in the show he makes a judgment of how he views the changes in the porn industry.  "Porn has lost its sense of humour and become something mac...

This is my initial thoughts in response to the governments launch of a new National Curriculum. But before we get into the details its important to remember that not every school in the country will need to follow the curriculum, academies do not have to follow the curriculum. As with every curriculum their will also be a fair amount of school interpretation for any part of the curriculum that does not make it onto a test. So I believe this National Curriculum should be seen as the governments rough idea of what it thinks should be happening. I think locally things will be delivered differently depending on Head Teachers, Heads of Subjects etc. This is my quick skim through with a SRE perspective please correct me if I make any mistakes of miss something important.  ***UPDATE 09-07-13*** The Sex Education Forum has released this short response   it does a great job of providing a clear summary of the key points, much more concise than my rambli...

This blog is blocked in Starbucks free WiFi, I had a little poke around and found a few other SRE sites blocked (some of which now seem to have been unblocked). I sent an email to Starbucks about my concerns and today I received this reply. Always nice to get a reply but sadly it doesn't seem to actually say that much. Why is Sex and Relationship Education information blocked? Is the content of this blog a danger to young people? Dear Gareth, Thank you for contacting Starbucks. We appreciate you sharing your concerns regarding Wi-Fi in our stores and I would like to assure you that we have been working on a solution with our provider, BT, which means that customers get the right balance between the protection and the freedom they want and need online. We are close to implementing this solution and part of it will be to restrict access to sites which are not deemed appropriate to view in a busy public environment. BT has also shared the follow...