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SexEd in School Assemblies

Trying to interest and educate over 100 young people about key issues in just 10 minutes.


I kind of hate assemblies, I hated them when I was at school and now working in schools I still kind of hate assemblies, especially Sexual Health assemblies. However, the reasons have changed.


When I was a student I hated assemblies because I found them tedious, irrelevant and usually very boring. As I became a 6th formers I sometimes found myself feeling sorry for the poor teacher standing in front of 100 bored students plowing through some moral example or thought for the day.

Now i dislike these assemblies for a completly differant reason. I struggle with the assembly format because the format does not make discussion, feedback or questions easy. These are the most qde important parts of a good sex and relationship education session. Yes im sure young people can recieve information just from watching & listening to someone delivering a assembly. Maybe one of the key points will hit home. But for most young people information only is not enough.

I believe sex and relationship education is most effective when it impacts attitudes, affects behaviour and teachs skills. For this to happen we need more then just information. I think discussion is key to make impacts with attitudes the process of bouncing ideas off each other and getting into the detail can bring about real change. Assemblies don't allow time for this normally. That is why I don't like then.

So why have I been doing SRE assemblies this week? I've been doing them to introduce myself and introduce topics. Before doing a series of lessons. This allows us to quicker get into the topics in the session because the already have meet me and might have starting thinking about the issue. For me this is one of the only good reasons to do SRE assemblies. I may not like them but sometimes they serve a purpose.

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