“(The SHEU survey) was very, very useful. It gave us reassurance we weren’t missing a trick. For example not many pupils in the sample year groups were taking illegal drugs, which re-enforced our opinions. But the survey also raised issues and flagged some things up. We discovered that some of our girls weren’t eating enough – the percentage of girls in our school not eating lunch the day before the survey was higher than the county average. There were other concerns too, specifically around cigarettes, alcohol and attendance.
The school used this data and took a number of actions to address it. More female peer mentors were put in place and the school asked NEXUS (the Extended Schools service) for help, so they developed a programme for girls which addressed their eating patterns, healthy eating, sex education and self-esteem issues.
We ran an anti-bullying group for Year 9 as a preventative measure, based upon data provided by our current Year 10 students.
The travel data revealed that a high number of pupils took the car to school so we involved the BIKE-IT scheme who ran assemblies, brought in their bikes (including one with a pedal-powered smoothie maker!), and raised awareness of health and green issues.
The information about how happy the students were with their lives raised some concerns as far fewer girls were as happy as the boys, so work was done around developing aspirations, role-models and self-esteem."
Young People into 2008
Twenty two years of Young People reports
A unique contemporary archive of young people, Young People into 2008 : web edition provides the answers to over 100 health-related behaviour questions. It is the 22nd in our annual series of publications based from the aggregated results of our survey work. 32,162 young people, between the ages of 10 and 15, tell us about what they do at home, at school, and with their friends. These data have been collected in 2007 from surveys in 361 primary and secondary schools across the United Kingdom.
There are nine chapters:-
Food choices and weight control (591kb pdf)
Use of health services (177kb pdf)
Health and Hygiene (251kb pdf)
Legal and illicit drugs (330kb pdf)
Exercise and sport (252kb pdf)
Personal and social (335kb pdf)
Other Primary pupil responses (204kb pdf)
Annually since 1986, the Schools Health Education Unit (an independent research unit based in Exeter) has published the collected Health Related Behaviour Questionnaire (HRBQ) results. A large number of separate school surveys have been carried out, some schools repeating surveys of their pupils on many occasions. The data banks at the Unit are a unique resource that are consulted by a wide range of groups and individuals including Local Education Authorities, Health Authorities, Government Offices, University departments, schools, teachers and other interested individuals.