Apause (Added Power and Understanding in Sex Education)

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Apause is a comprehensive SRE (sex and relationships education) programme for secondary schools, consisting of a set of resources to facilitate ease of teaching, and safe and effective learning.

Apause offers a straightforward and engaging way for schools to implement an effective SRE curriculum:

• Suitable for all teachers, from the inexperienced through to expert PSHE staff.
• Ready-to-go classroom resources that include integrated and engaging group exercises leading to whole class interactions and healthy resolutions.
• Teacher packs include suggested lesson plans and video clips of the key parts of the lessons being taught.
• No face-to-face training required.
• Customised mix of sessions available to fit with your school and the particular needs of your students or community.
• Can be delivered by teachers, older peers and/or health professionals.
• Proven effectiveness in thousands of KS3 and KS4 classrooms.
• Cited as ‘Good practice’ by DfES and OFSTED.
• Satisfies OFSTED/QCA PSHE criteria.

 

Delivery of Apause

Teaching effective SRE couldn’t be easier with Apause. Once you’ve decided Apause is right for you we’ll activate your subscription:

1. Decide whether to access materials online or request our ready-to-use packs so there’s no photocopying, or making up of packs required.
2. Look through the resources available and view video clips for examples of how the sessions can be delivered.
3. Decide which lessons to deliver.
4. Teach!

We’re here for you every step of the way - while the ApauseToo resources have been designed for online training using clips of classroom practice, we can provide a twilight introduction session for any teachers responsible for SRE. This is a bespoke session which should give your staff a thorough guide to our unique training and delivery methods.

Contact SRE project now for more information!

Both specialist teachers and those with no prior experience in SRE can deliver Apause. Learning is achieved through small group tasks focusing on carefully designed resources and requiring some practice of novel communication skills. The subject-specific and sensitive information is contained within the resource itself, leaving teachers to concentrate on classroom management and facilitating the feedback from the small groups to the whole class.

“I think that the exercises were good because they were not just worksheets and did not patronise us.”
Yr 10 student from Somerset.

Apause is a unique combination of teacher- and peer-led lessons allowing the teacher to deliver the programme either way or combined.

 

Peer-led components

Perceptions of our social world are shaped by both the adults and young people in our lives. Accordingly, a programme delivered by peer-educators with a clear ‘delay’ message, including practise in assertiveness skills, is successful at promoting postponement of first intercourse.

Just as importantly, for those young people who are sexually active, Apause is effective at enabling them to be better at using contraception. Read more about Peer Education >>

Teacher-led components

The adult-led exercises (ApauseToo) complement the peer-led exercises by facilitating deeper understandings about sex and sexuality, with an emphasis on the exploration of the beliefs, attitudes and skills necessary in building successful relationships.

Within this overarching context of relationships education more medical aspects such as contraception and STIs are explored. Find out more about ApauseToo >>

External evaluation of Apause

In 2004, NFER (the National Foundation for Education Research) published an evaluation of Apause with data taken from 104 schools. NFER reported that Apause had been enthusiastically welcomed by teachers, health professionals, commissioners and young people. Its flexibility has enabled adoption in academies independent, single sex, faith, grammar and comprehensive schools. You can download the full report here (external link).

How Apause works – and why

Rooted in social cognitive theory, Apause is based on the notion that the primary driver in the forming of novel actions is the perception we have of the behaviours, values and attitudes we encounter around us. This is not a model that posits we passively arrive at new behaviours through social influences alone, but rather states that individuals consciously and actively acquire the self-efficacy beliefs and behavioural skills with which to exercise more control in their lives.

Read more about Apause:

• Apause Peers - KS3 lessons facilitated by older students.
• ApauseToo - lessons for KS3 and KS4, delivered by a teacher or adult.

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