Relationships & Sex Education - Speakers

Lesley de Meza

Consultant, Trainer and Writer at Lesley de Meza Ltd

A teacher, consultant, trainer, counsellor and writer with over 40 years’ experience in education, health and media.  Respected nationally and internationally, having worked across the UK, Europe and with the USA. 
Lesley is known for her input too Personal, Social and Health Education (PSHE).  She has worked with a wide range of organisations including: NICE, DfE, DoH.

She was Vice Chair of Trustees for a sexual health charity and is an Associate Trainer for the National Children's Bureau and Brook.

In a voluntary capacity she spends one day a week working with the charity, “Norwood”.

She has recently produced a PSHE scheme of work covering Key Stages 1, 2, 3 & 4 for The Health Education Partnership. It is in use in 4 London boroughs.

She has co-facilitated (Civil Service Learning) Courses for Westminster Explained.

The ‘learning provision’ she offers is: High quality, dynamic, modern, vibrant, interactive and delivered with positive energy.

www.lesleydemeza.com

Stephen De Silva

Education Consultant, PSHE & Pastoral Care

Is an experienced teacher and former head of PSHE, now an independent consultant, with over 35 years’ service in education and health sectors. He delivers PSHE and pastoral programmes for staff across the UK and with British schools in Europe and SE Asia.

Gemma Curtis

Head of Education, Diversity Role Models

Gemma has a background in youth work and has taught in Primary schools for just under a decade. As the Head of Education at Diversity Role Models, she is passionate about opening up honest discussions around LGBT issues in schools, empowering young people to challenge discrimination and giving them the tools to critically engage with the impact of their behaviour.

Rebecca Jennings

Sex & Relationship Education Consultant, RAISE

Author of 'Sex & Relationship Education in Primary Schools' Rebecca has worked in the field of Sex & Relationship Education for over 14 years.

Previously Working as the Sex and Relationship Education lead alongside the NHS Rebecca now works as a Freelance SRE Teacher and Trainer  through her company RAISE (Raising Awareness in Sex Education) with extensive experience designing and delivering sessions around sex education, puberty, hygiene, relationships and birth to Primary & Secondary school pupils, young people, teaching staff, school governors and parents.

Rebecca now works across the country delivering sessions on a range of sexual health subjects such as pornography, sexting, Child Sexual Exploitation, Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), Contraception & Sexual Health.
As a qualified CIPD trainer, and with qualifications in counselling , RCN certificate in sexual health, a BA Hons Degree in Education & English her academic knowledge teamed with experience ensures she is both knowledgeable and confident to teach, train and advise in the field of sex and relationships education.

Rebecca recently appeared on the BBC2 Victoria Derbyshire Show as a guest speaker to discuss the importance of effective RSE, Rebecca is also in the process of publishing her new children’s resource around menstruation entitled ‘Mummy’s Special Tissues’ To find out more about the work Rebecca delivers as part of RAISE visit www.raiseeducation.org.uk or follow updates on Twitter @RebeccaWhiteSRE.

Lynwen Jones

Health Education Consultant

With over 20 years’ experience within RSE working for the Birmingham Health Education Service, the NHS, sexual health charities and directly delivering in schools. Lynwen is passionate in enabling schools to develop appropriate and effective, whole school RSE and has worked in over 90 primary schools to create policies and schemes based on children’s consultation, engaging parents and supporting staff.

Melonie Syrett

Assistant Head Teacher, Goose Green Primary & Nursery School

Melonie has been teaching, co-coordinating and consulting on PSHE since 2003. She became a chartered teacher of PSHE in 2012. She believes that all children deserve high quality provision in this area of life long learning.

Leanne Sutheran

PSHCE Co-ordinator, The Grammar School at Leeds

Leanne Sutheran has been teaching 20 years. She is PSHCE co-ordinator for Y7 - Y13 at the Grammar School at Leeds, including leading Sex and Relationship Education. She is also a CEOP ambassador.

Jan Lever

Creator and Director, Jigsaw

Jan taught for 15 years from pre-school in America to a range of contexts in the UK from Primary to sixth form, managing RE and PSHE (Personal, Social, Health Education) departments and pastoral care programmes.
10 years as a Local Authority School Improvement Adviser, focussing on RE and PSHE, and leading government projects from Healthy Schools to Targeted Mental Health in Schools, as well as being the Lead Assessor and South West Regional Adviser for the national PSHE CPD Programme gave Jan many opportunities to develop work in schools relating mental and emotional health to learning.
She is also a qualified Counsellor and Psychotherapist with a small private practice, and now, in her freelance role and as Director of Jigsaw PSHE Ltd and JLECT, brings these professional fields together writing teaching and therapeutic materials underpinned by mindfulness philosophy and practice.
Jigsaw, the mindful approach to PSHE, launched in 213 and is already used by over 1000 primary schools in the UK and a growing number further afield, from Dubai to the Netherlands.
Jan leads training sessions in many contexts in the UK and abroad and remains passionate about children’s mental health, believing the better this is, the greater their capacity to learn and the richer the life chances afforded to them.

Jigsaw, the mindful approach to PSHE
A Comprehensive Primary School PSHE Programme underpinned by mindfulness philosophy and practice.
 

Lucy Emmerson

Coordinator, Sex Education Forum

As head of the Sex Education Forum (SEF), Lucy leads policy and campaigns activities to secure children and young people’s entitlement to good quality relationships and sex education (RSE), on behalf of a membership of national and local organisations.

Lucy also supports educators by providing practical resources to help them provide quality RSE. She has written and co-authored several publications including  ‘SRE for the 21st Century’, a toolkit for involving primary school children in reviewing RSE, and a guide for schools wanting to involve parents in RSE, ‘Let’s work together’.

Kieren McCarthy

Executive Director, IFFOR

A policy maker, journalist and internet governance expert, Kieren is Executive Director of IFFOR, a non-profit based in the United States that specializes in developing policies and educational materials around online sexual content.

Kieren has written extensively about the internet and the challenges it poses for publications as diverse as the New Scientist, Guardian and Sunday Times. He ran the public participation program for internet overseeing body ICANN for a number of years, started a company focused on internet policy and governance news, and wrote a book about the domain name Sex.com that, disappointingly, has very little to do with sex.

IFFOR's new program, an eight-part educational course tackling online sexual content for children aged 11-14 and called AtFirstSite, is currently being piloted in schools across the UK.