Video

Faith and sex education aren't necessarily two subjects that go together, but students in Newham believe that faith should play an integral role when teaching sex and relationship education (SRE) in the classroom. Something that teachers, advisors and agencies in Newham have been working towards together in developing faith sensitive SRE.

The students, all members of the borough's SACRE, decided that the SRE classes needed to take into account the different religions and faiths of students in the school.

The SACRE members suggested the idea that they should produce learning material for SRE classes that the pupils could feel took their religious beliefs into account. Newham and NASACRE have funded this work with student SACRE to produce materials to support Newham's policies on SRE.

The Newham Student SACRE was set up in 2005 with the aim of reflecting Newham's diverse population and faith groups in the classroom.

With SACRE meetings held every month, the number of schools and students becoming involved has gradually increased and at present 12 out the 15 secondary schools are now represented.

It's taken almost a year to complete, but the dvd will be ready by the end of the month. As well as providing a very useful aid to sexual education lessons in Newham, it's hoped the dvd be of interest to other LA's when thinking about their SRE provision.

To watch interviews with the student SACRE members that helped initiate the dvd and clips from the dvd click up on the right