Commitment, families and TrueTube

A new teaching resource puts family relationships front and centre of school efforts to support children post-pandemic.

Family relationship charity Fastn has teamed up with award-winning educational resource producers TrueTube to create the free resource aimed at Key Stage 3 and Key Stage 4 (years 7 to 11), which can also be adapted to use with other secondary age groups.

The resource centres on the real-life experiences of four diverse and inclusive families filmed in their homes and communities. It has already received rave reviews from teachers.

Download the resources here

Read more about our work with Truetube, and meet the families

Talking to your children about dependable Relationships.

Parents have been more important than ever in supporting their child’s education in the last year.

Similarly, we have seen that relationships are what help us get through the tough times. Fastn have worked with Lucy Marcovitch, an education writer and PSHE consultant, Parentkind and Mental Health Foundation to develop a resource for parents.

The resource supports parents of KS3 and KS4 pupils to have supportive and productive conversations with their children about relationships. It offers top tips and conversation starters to help navigate talking to your child about relationships in the context of coronavirus, what healthy relationships look like, what dependability looks like or helping your child explore what their relationship ambitions are.

You can download it for free here. If you use the resource, we’d love to hear from you.

If you are an educator or organisation who would be interested in hosting this resource on your site then please get in touch!

PSHE Association
Quality Assured Relationships Resource

Fastn has delivered a brand-new quality assured lesson plan to support the inclusive delivery of statutory Relationships and Sex Education, featuring chart-topping rapper Nick Brewer. The resource is built around Nicks' poem (below), where he reflects on commitment to his younger self. Nick was nominated for a Best Newcomer MOBO Award in 2015 and has charted with the single Talk to Me.

The lesson plan, which is inclusive in its approach to family relationships, has been quality assured by the PSHE Association.  The new resource is designed to support educationalists teaching the new statutory Relationships and Sex Education curriculum at Key Stage 3, for 11-14-year-olds.

Students use case-study worksheets to reflect on the commitments they want to make to themselves and others, why and what benefits to their relationships could flow from doing so.  You can download the full resource as one single document here. If you prefer, you can also download the documents as individual papers at these links.

Poem Transcript
Teaching Guidance
Lesson Plan Slides
Case Studies Worksheet
My Commitments Worksheet

(Full package in one document)

This vital new resource meets the ten principles of effective PSHE education set out by the PSHE Association. The PSHE Association Quality Mark is granted to resources that undergo a rigorous process of quality assurance and meet best practice principles, including that they support a safe and supportive learning environment, build on prior learning and take a positive approach.  This resource ties very closely with the 12 Principles of Excellence in Relationships Education resource which you can download here.

Nick Brewer
Commitment

Rapper Nick Brewer released a new poem recently to inspire young people to think about their relationships and the commitment they need to thrive in life. The UK rapper and spoken word artist, who had a top 20 hit in 2015, is reflecting on what commitment means to him and encouraging others to do the same. This poem and video can be used as a resource to inspire people to think about what commitment means to them and find creative ways to express themselves.

As One… Not Alone

Fastn have been working with UK Youth on the As One… Not Alone project which aims to tackle youth loneliness through healthy, dependable relationships.

Through this project, a group of young people from across England have created a resource for anyone working with young people.

This resource contains activity plans, personal experiences of young people and helpful infographics.

Anyone working with young people can use this resource to explore meaningful relationships as one possible way of tackling experiences of loneliness. If you work with young people or know someone who does, why not give it a read or pass it on.

You can download from the UK Youth page here.

If you use the resource, we’d love to hear from you, drop us a note here.

RSE Case Studies

Children’s interactions with those around them literally shape the way their brains grow. Childhood is when our brains are at their busiest; when the foundations are put in place. It’s a vital period of development.

Researchers have shown that developing positive relationship skills when the brain is at its most flexible can boost a host of outcomes, including academic performance, employment, both physical and mental health, the ability to manage stress and conflict, and the opportunity to have fulfilling relationships throughout life.  

We have worked with Northcott School in Hull, Wood Farm primary school Oxford, Mounts Bay Academy in Cornwall, Shropshire County Council, St John’s Catholic Primary School, in Shropshire, Highgate School, Bankside Primary School in Leeds, Explore, XP Academy, Relate and a host of others to explore what great Relationship Education looks like.

Click on the links above to download the Case Studies.

Principles of excellence in relationships education

Over the past six months, we have been collaborating with a group of relationships organisations and practising educators to identify what excellence in relationships education is. 

We have worked with a wide selection of relationship charities and as a collective, we have created a set of principles to help guide educators to adjust to the government requirements in a way that embraces the importance of relationships.

You can download that document here

Experiencing healthy relationships through sport

Fastn have collaborated with Sport Birmingham and Birmingham City University on a project to understand how mentoring and sports activities can help young people learn about relationships. 

The M.A.D programme is run by Sport Birmingham and provides mentoring and activities for young people at risk of, or already in, exclusion from mainstream schooling.

Birmingham City University interviewed the participants of this programme to better understand the relationship skills and understanding they had gained from the programme.   The learning from this project has been distilled into a useful document, Experiencing Healthy Relationships Through Sport can be downloaded here.