AET Teacher and Professional Newsletter – December 2017

Autumn Term, December 2017, Ed 35

We’re well and truly on the countdown to Christmas now and have been looking back over our work throughout the last academic year. We are delighted to have supported more than 796 schools and 102 organisations across the UK with hard copies of our resources and 2,100 schools and organisations in total. We have finished our 3 year plan and will be reporting shortly in our new Impact report – as well as publishing our new goals for the next three years – exciting times!

In case we are not in touch again, can we say have a wonderful break over Christmas and thank you for continuing to use talkaboutalcohol.com (use of these great games and quizzes has doubled over the year) and alcoholeducationtrust.org which has enjoyed 131,000 unique visits from teachers and health professionals this year!

High ranking from The Early Intervention Foundation

We were delighted to learn recently that our Talk about Alcohol programme has been awarded a ranking of 2 by The Early Intervention Foundation (EIF), with 1 for cost effectiveness. Our programme was subject to a three-stage assessment process which involved the application of The EIF’s evidence standards against Talk about Alcohol’s evaluation evidence. We are pleased that this high ranking means we will be listed in The EIF’s best evidenced programmes guidebook. You can read the full report here.

Mentor Drug and Alcohol Quality Mark

If you are considering the Mentor Drug and Alcohol Quality Mark, then please remember that Talk about Alcohol is awarded 3/3 (the highest possible mark!) for impact and effectiveness and 5/6 for quality of evaluation. The delivery of just 6 lessons over 2 years will ensure you meet the criteria for the quality mark for alcohol education! Do email us for advice for the alcohol part of the award via helena@alcoholeducationtrust.org.

Awards!

2017 has been a great year for awards for us. We were highly commended in The Education Resources Awards earlier in the year and were also shortlisted in the best charity with an income of less than £1m in The Charity Times Awards 2017 in October. On the 22nd November, we headed up to London for the Children and Young People Now Awards ceremony. This was a really exciting evening and we were shortlisted for The Early Intervention Award. Sadly we didn't win this time but we are very proud of our achievements in being shortlisted in the top 6 nationally for these awards! 

PSHE education supports academic success!

A new review highlights ‘very strong evidence’ that high quality PSHE learning ‘has a positive impact on academic attainment’. 

The independent review produced by expert economists from a number of Government departments suggests that PSHE education directly supports young people in succeeding academically by developing skills and attributes such as confidence and positive risk-taking, which enable young people to excel.

This research could prove very useful when highlighting the importance of PSHE education in your schools and with parents, showing how it complements academic achievement. And for us, in a national policy contex,t it provides yet more evidence of the need for statutory PSHE education for all. You can read more here.

Alcohol Awareness Week 2017

Alcohol Awareness week ran from the 13th-20th November and we were very busy getting involved in events up and down the country! Our CEO Helena took part in an interview on our local radio station Wessex FM; you can read more about this here.

As usual we had a packed diary of events around the country during alcohol awareness week. We spoke to over 600 teenagers via 6th Form assemblies, hosted parent sessions, attended a special needs conference and held our Trustee meeting! It was great that so many of you made a real feature of the week, even though it clashed with anti-bullying week – sorry, we don’t set the date!

We are very excited to be working in partnership with Fluid Motion Theatre Company and Dorchester Arts to bring the Arts Council funded 'Rum and the Gravy Boat' performance to the largest sixth form in the country during alcohol awareness week next year! If you’d like to get involved with us as a school, club or business next November then please do schedule us in early as it does get very busy, but it’s a great excuse to talk about alcohol before the party season begins. Email kate@alcoholeducationtrust.org

Young people can have their say in NHS survey

NHS Digital have launched a questionnaire to obtain young people’s views which are very important to them and will help determine what information on smoking, drinking and drug use amongst young people is collected through this survey in the future and how it is reported.

The survey will run for 8 weeks and close on 30 January 2018, so please do encourage the young people you work with to take part and have their day.

The questionnaire and full details of the consultation are available here.

Thank you from The AET and Breast Cancer Now!

On the 30th November and 1st December, we held a 50%/50% clothes sale jointly in aid of The Alcohol Education Trust and Breast Cancer Now! Amazingly, £4,000 was taken over the two days and close to £1,500 will be given to each of the charities due to the generosity of those who helped organise, consigned some amazing clothes (including top designers), baked cakes, hosted stalls, donated to the raffle and came and spent their money so generously!

Our next events will be over the weekend of the 24th March 2018 championing all things made grown and created in Dorset. Now in its third year this involves a wonderful sit down dinner featuring Dorset produce, an art exhibition and an open day featuring local specialists. Do email Kate via kate@alcoholeducationtrust.org or ring on 01300 320 665 if you’d like to be involved.

Save the date for the next AET/Mentor conference!

After the success of our National Alcohol and Drugs conference held at Middlesex University in October last year, we are pleased to say that we will be having a second AET/Mentor conference on the 21st June 2018. The conference will be held at Liverpool John Moore’s University with Andy Burnham, Mayor of Manchester, as the keynote speaker. There will be a full afternoon of workshops including a two hour seminar on implementing the Talk about Alcohol programme. We do hope to see you there and further details will be released in the New Year!

Are you an Exercise Education Specialist? Please help!

Spectrecom Films are currently working on a series of educational videos for BBC Bitesize, and are looking to chat with an Exercise Education Specialist based anywhere in the UK for their video about obesity.

The series is a fun and playful tour around all things science for 11-14 year olds, and Spectrecom would like to speak to someone engaging about being an Exercise Education specialist and about the mechanics of Obesity. As they're working with the BBC it's incredibly important for them to speak to a range of men, women and non-binary people of all ethnicities. If you can help, please contact and@spectrecom.co.uk

AET resources comprise of www.alcoholeducationtrust.org and www.talkaboutalcohol.com, a Teacher Workbook, booklets ‘Alcohol and You’ for 15yrs+ and ‘Talking to Your Kids About Alcohol’ parent and carer guide. 

We also offer teacher CPD workshops and parent information talks.

For further information on any of the above please contact
Helena Conibear, Founder, Director helena@alcoholeducationtrust.org
Kathryn Arnott-Gent, Parent and Schools Coordinator - N Region kathryn@alcoholeducationtrust.org
Helen Dougan, SE Region & SEND Coordinator hdougan@alcoholeducationtrust.org
Kate Hooper, Schools Coordinator kate@alcoholeducationtrust.org

Trustees
Gordon Redley BEd (Cantab)
Christina Benjamin BSc (Hons) PGCE
Patricia Garven Cert Ed.
Kate Larard MSc, HV, RM, SRN
Victoria Mc Donaugh MA (Hons), PGCE
Keith Newton ACA
Alison Winsborough BMus, PGCE

The Alcohol Education Trust, Frampton House, Frampton, Dorset, DT2 9NH

01300 320 869

Registered Charity Number 1138775

www.alcoholeducationtrust.org