Nottingham City Council will spend more than £400,000 on a new team to provide support to schools on relationships, sex and health education.
A total of £416,610 will be spent on the project over three years, with the recruitment process starting soon.
Nottingham previously had a similar project which ran until 2018 but this was stopped due to financial challenges.
Now, there are plans to recruit up to four members of staff for a new team.
The team will be a “one-stop point of contact” for schools to access resources around Personal, Social, Health and Economic (PSHE) education and health.
The team will provide support, training and signposting to schools in the city.
Council documents state:
“The team will focus on prevention, providing and coordinating support across a range of areas that impact on health and wellbeing, including sexual health, drugs and alcohol education, financial wellbeing and aspirations.”
Relationships and Health Education is statutory for primary schools and Relationships, Sex and Health Education is statutory for secondary schools.
But provision varies as it is dependent on the school the pupil attends.
Another focus for the team will be on ‘Eating and Moving for Good Health’ as statistics show that in Nottingham City, the proportion of year six children living with overweight and obesity is 40.8 per cent.
Recent predictions put that at 50.7 per cent by 2028/29.
The team will be an “important vehicle” to educate and influence eating habits in early life.
“The specialist nature of the team means that they will be able to direct towards the most effective interventions according to current best practice,” City Council documents state.
“There are multiple areas of the country where this model has been successfully implemented including Manchester, Leeds, Hertfordshire and Surrey.
“Reported successes range from improving school packed lunches to improving the Ofsted outcome for health and wellbeing to ‘Good’ across 95 per cent of schools over a seven-year period.
“Measures of success were self-reported by schools and included things like setting up breakfast clubs and organising access to water bottles leading to improved behaviour and fewer cases of enuresis.”
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