By Katrina Mather
30.01.2008

After a week of amazing press coverage, in which UK Youth Parliament got its first front page story, we met the Minister to find out what he was going to do about the shocking statistics published in the SRE report “Are you getting it”.

After 2 hours of battling out the solution to the UK’s sky high teenage pregnancy rates and a rise in homophobic bullying (I think we all enjoyed this a little more than Jim Knight who was finding it hard not to agree with us completely) he committed to reviewing the Government policy on SRE and how it can be most effective.

This was followed by a meeting on the 30th of January with Government officials to negotiate the terms of the review.
It will look at; the content of SRE taking into account age appropriation and how best to gain parental support for this; tackling issues within schools senior management teams, who currently aren’t prioritising SRE, and reviewing the curriculum planning as part of this; and most effective ways to share best practice. Depending on the end result, SRE’s compulsory status may or may not be reviewed. The review committee will be made up of a combination of; 3-4 Young people, professionals from teaching and schools, and sexual health experts.

We are still waiting to hear whether a young person will be co-chairing the committee along with Jim Knight and another professional, but while we pend that decision I think its fair to say this is a brilliant result for the campaign and what all of us have worked to achieve.

It is a perfect example of the influence UKYP can have on national policies and lets hope for an even more successful 2008!