The Alcohol Education Trust Six Alcohol Education Lesson Plans 4 lessons to be delivered at age 12-14 (Year 8 or 9 / S1 or S2) with two top up lessons at age 13-15 (Year 9 or 10 / S3 or S4) TABLE OF CONTENTS Foreword 1 Acknowledgements 3 Getting started 4 Model Lesson 1 Assessing knowledge - How much do you know about alcohol? Model Lesson 2 Units and guidelines – Responsible drinking Model Lesson 3 Alcohol and its effects (physical and social) Model Lesson 4 Alcohol and the Law - The consequences Model Lesson 5 The effects of drinking too much Model Lesson 6 Reflect and recap - making safer choices Talking to your class about alcohol can be tricky, but it’s essential that young people learn the facts. This collection of lesson plans provides engaging activities for 11 to 15 year-olds. The initial unit of work is designed to be delivered across an academic year and consists of 4 lessons, with each focussing on a key topic. The two ‘top up’ lessons should follow a year later to build spirals of learning and embed safer decision making as the children get older. Each lesson consists of selected activities, with suggestions for possible variation, depending on the characteristics of the class and time available. All resources are downloadable as pdfs from alcoholeducationtrust.org teacher area. Whether the lessons succeed is largely dependent on the way children exchange their ideas and feelings in groups. The activities involve discussion-based work, group work, true or false ‘myth busters’ and links to the interactive games, quizzes and activities in the Online Learning Zone talkaboutalcohol.com. The lesson plans include suggested film clips, worksheets and factsheets as well as games and activities and comprehensive but straightforward information - everything you need for fun and informative lessons. Produced by The Alcohol Education Trust [email protected] Charity Registration Number 1138775 First Edition May 2020. Copyright Helena Conibear of The Alcohol Education Trust. All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission in accordance with the provisions of the copyright act 1956. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 licence. To view a copy of this licence, visit creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/ FOREWORD These lesson plans and the complementary websites and if children do drink alcohol, they should not talkaboutalcohol.com and alcoholeducationtrust.org do so until at least age 15 years-old.“ (See the full have been created by The Alcohol Education Trust. guidance at alcoholeducationtrust.org/wp-content/ The Alcohol Education Trust has a very specific remit: uploads/2014/08/CMOguidance.pdf). Drinking i) the provision of alcohol education in different at a young age can lead to increased risk of injury, ways, to children aged 11 - 18 and their parents, other negative risk taking and a greater risk of and dependency in adulthood. According to WHO, alcohol ii) to provide engaging, evidence based resources misuse is the biggest risk factor for death, ill-health and lesson plans for teachers and youth and disability among 15-49 year-olds in the UK See professionals that are suitable for various ages, alcoholeducationtrust.org/teacher-area/facts- abilities and experience and which have been figures/ for more information. fully evaluated and shown to be effective in The Talk About Alcohol material comprises a wide improving outcomes for young people. range of exercises largely based on value and The Alcohol Education Trust charity trustees include behavioural perspectives. Issues are discussed experienced teachers and specialists in PSHE, an ex from an interdisciplinary perspective. The focus Head of Department from a large Greater London is on encouraging young people to take personal secondary school, and a Head of Department from a responsibility and to choose behaviours that resist 0-19 academy in one of the highest areas of multiple social coercion and peer pressure. Lecturing and scare deprivation in England. mongering are avoided as much as possible. These resources provide adaptable materials to suit In England health education (which includes alcohol the knowledge and experience of young people education) was due to become a compulsory subject aged 11-18 . They use material drawn from existing in state funded primary and secondary schools from resources that can be found via the AET website. Setember 2020. An extension has been granted to July By making these resources available, The Alcohol 2021 due to COVID 19. Education Trust aims to work towards a more The statutory guidance issued by the DfE defines responsible drinking culture in the UK, by ensuring what schools should do and sets out the legal duties young people are able to make informed choices with which schools must comply when teaching based on knowledge about units and guidelines, Relationships Education, Relationships and Sex alcohol and the law, alcohol and its effects, how to stay Education (RSE) and Health Education(DfE statutory safe and how to resist peer pressure. guidance - Physical health and mental wellbeing Results of the evaluation of this Talk About Alcohol (Primary and secondary). For alcohol education, programme 2011-15 by NFER show that our resources the guidance states that the PSHE/RSHE curriculum significantly help raise the age at which young people should include the physical and psychological risks start drinking, an effect that strengthens over time. The associated with alcohol consumption and what evaluation found that after completing the training, constitutes low risk alcohol consumption in adulthood the proportion of young people who had ever had a and also the physical and psychological consequences drink was lower in the intervention group than in the of addiction, including alcohol dependency. control group and that two years later, this difference The ‘DfE and ACPO Drug Advice for Schools’ 1 became significantly more pronounced. Those pupils strongly recommends that schools ‘develop a drugs who had 4 key TAA lessons in Year 8 with 2 top up policy which sets out their role in relation to all drug lessons in Year 9 were 15% less likely to be drinking matters – this includes the content and organisation whole drinks than those in control schools who hadn’t of drug education, and the management of drugs had the lessons. and medicines within school boundaries and on The AET also aims to reduce the prevalence of school trips. As it does not include references to the ‘drinking to get drunk’, and to encourage self reliance, curriculum, teaching orPSHE/RSHE and is much more confidence and self respect, making it easier for about responding to drug related incidents etc., we young people to resist peer pressure. By ensuring recommend that schools access the links in further 11 - 18 year-olds are equipped with no nonsense sources of information on p3 of this booklet for facts about alcohol, we hope to encourage them planning and guidance on schemes of work for PSHE. to make better informed drinking choices as they Substance misuse education and prevention activity get older. Our aim is to achieve The Chief Medical within Scottish schools is delivered under the Officer guidance for young people that “an alcohol Curriculum for Excellence. Health and Wellbeing is free childhood is the healthiest and best option, one of eight curriculum areas provided through to SIX ALCOHOL EDUCATION LESSON PLANS PAGE 1 S3. Relevant experiences and outcomes for substance The importance of evidence based prevention misuse seek to ensure that children and young people In recent years, drug prevention researchers and can appropriately differentiate between substances, practitioners have agreed on what can help a school- understand the action that needs to be taken in based alcohol education programme be effective. unsafe situations, can make informed choices, and can Such a programme should encompass a number of understand the implications of risk-taking behaviour. elements including life skills, exploration of social The Welsh government provided ‘Guidance for norms and social influences, involvement of the substance misuse education’ in 2013, which states that family (via homework or parents’ evenings) and the learners should be given opportunities to study ‘the provision of balanced, non-judgemental information, effect on the human body of some drugs, including allowing pupils to make fully informed choices. It alcohol’, as well as ‘how to use alcohol responsibly should avoid scare tactics, ‘top down’ approaches and and the risks of binge drinking’. A new curriculum one off sessions on a topic (See further sources of for Wales for learners aged 3 to 16 was published in information on p3 of this booklet). 2020 and will be taught in all schools and funded Research demonstrates that alcohol use for many non-maintained settings up to Year 7 from September adolescents forms part of their lifestyle and social lives. 2022. It will then roll out year by year until it includes The approach of the Alcohol Education Trust is holistic: Year 11 by 2026. Health and Well-being is one of six one of early prevention moving to harm minimisation, core areas included in the curriculum. providing both drinkers and non drinkers with The harm minimisation approaches used by The strategies for reducing harm occurring, as well as Alcohol Education Trust and Talk About Alcohol incorporating important non-use and delayed use strategies. DO