Thank you for supporting us over the last five years! We turn five today, 27th August, and we couldn’t be prouder of the progress we’ve made together. Since we started in 2019, we have made a huge difference. To celebrate, here are five of our favourite highlights since we began.
Oxford Brookes University
For many years, we’ve worked with Oxford Brookes University academics Dr Hannah Yelin and Dr Michele Paule to create a free anti-sexism course for state schools, based on our activism and teaching and their years of research in boosting girls’ confidence. Today, 41 schools and youth groups have signed up to our course and students have led incredible gender equality campaigns as a result. This includes Sandbach feminist youth group which is campaigning to get school uniforms banned in pornography to tackle the hypersexualisation of girls. You can sign up to our course here - we would love to welcome you from September 2024!
Sex Ed Debate Competition
In 2023, we sponsored our first debating competition at South Hampstead High School, which aims to make students more confident when talking about stigmatised sex education topics like periods and consent. Throughout the day a whopping 360 speeches were made by 120 students comprising 40 teams from 10 schools. The students responded so well that we’ve decided to go back this year and do it all again! You can sign up to our event this year on 12th November from 4.30pm for students in Key Stage 3 to 5 here.
Sex Ed on the Cards
In 2021, we teamed up with Outspoken Sex Ed in 2021 to create a ‘Sex Ed on the Cards’ a fun, factual and LGBTQ+ inclusive game which delivers effective and engaging relationships and sex education (RSE) to young people aged 14+. For too long this education has focused on dangers and risks, but young people have the right, need, desire and curiosity to see the bigger sex-ed picture. We’ve since spotted our card game in the schools we work with, which is always really encouraging!
Workshops
The backbone of our work is delivering empowering and high quality sex education workshops to schools across the UK, from London to Glasgow! We’re so grateful to all the schools we’ve worked with and particularly those which have invited us back every year since we started in 2019. This includes Hertswood Academy and St Paul’s Girls School. We can’t wait to continue working with your students so they’re as confident as possible navigating the reality of sex and relationships throughout their life. You can find out more here.
Winning UKRI grants
We won UKRI’s Young Innovator Award 2022/23 and Unlocking Potential Award 2023/24 to transform RSE across the country. As part of this, we have been developing innovative safeguarding technology to put student views and experiences at the heart of a school’s PSHE curriculum. Keep an eye on our socials and sign up to our mailing list to hear more, as we will be launching our pilot scheme from September 2024!
To mark five magic years of Sex Ed Matters, our founder Laura received her MBE this year for services to charitable campaigning. With this added layer of credibility, we feel we can make an even bigger impact than before.
We want to send a special thank you to our youth advisory board, our advisory council, and mentors for guiding us through the last five years so skilfully and patiently.
We can’t wait for what the next five years have in store for us. We know that with your support, we can do anything!
Feel free to get in touch by emailing us at info@sexedmatters.co.uk. You can also sign up to our newsletter here to stay up to date with our work.
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