Speaker John Waterhouse - Life Education Bradford

Life Education Bradford

John said that the Idea started in Sydney Australia as an anti-drugs campaign in schools. Rotarian David Pollard started the Life Education Bradford (LEB) 30 years ago following on from the Australian example as did other organisations in the UK. But each one is run as a separate company and charity. There are currently 9 other charities and limited companies registered with Life Education in their title.

Originally the initiative was sponsored by Bradford MBC who paid the salaries of the teachers employed by LEB. However, about 12 years ago the council pulled out and the staff were TUPE’d into the company LEB. The organisation needed support so they linked up with Coram as the delivery partner. Coram are the UK’s first and longest serving children’s charity which started in the 1700s. Coram Life Education is just one small part of the Coram group that contains 11 other subsidiaries.

The LEB offering is based around SCARF: -

• Safety

• Caring

• Achievement

• Resilience

• Friendship

This is a whole-school approach to the development of children’s health & wellbeing through PSHE (Personal, Social, Health and Economic education) which is now a core part of the national curriculum. Also covered is RSHE (Relationships, Sex and Health Education). Initial classes start in Nursery school with children as young as 3-year-old teaching them what not to put in their mouth. The education continues in each year from there to age 11 with more difficult topics being gradually introduced. There are also modules for parents to explain to them what is being taught at each age. A lot of use is made of the Harold the Giraffe puppet and his puppet friends to explain the concepts.

The lessons from LEB cover child mental health, social media, peer pressure, and bullying early intervention. This helps the students better navigate the modern world. The teachers from LEB find it works best if the children’s form teacher participate in the lesson as well but some go off and do other things while the lesson is being given. You can see comments from teachers and pupils on the LEB web page – see the link at the end of this article.

Originally lessons at LEB were taught in one of 4 caravans specifically designed for the job. When the Covid pandemic came these had to be shut down, and even afterwards they were no longer deemed a safe environment to teach a class of 30 children. So, all areas in UK except for Cambridge got rid of caravans and the lessons are now delivered in the classrooms. One good thing that did come out of Covid was that an online version was developed. There are hopes to get a huge blow-up classroom that could be set up in the school hall but as the cost of this would be around £10,000 it remains an aspiration.

When Coram offered their help it didn’t bring any money into the equation, and each Life Education company still had to find the income to pay the running costs which are about £130,000 per year. Last year LEB taught 30,000 children, with a school being charged around £1,200 for a full day. However, many schools can’t afford this, so lesser amounts are charged, and the balance is made up from donations to the charity. In the last 5 years the Keith Howard Foundation gave £30,000 per year but their resources are stretched by the demands on them and this year that was reduced to £15,000. So, LEB is keen to seek support from as many other organisations as it can.

LEB web page - https://www.coramlifeeducation.org.uk/your-local-area/life-education-bradford