BUPA’s Ray King, the company’s Group Finance Director joined the trustee board of Life Education in October indicating the company’s further commitment to support our work in reaching more communities and children.

Ray recently visited a mobile classroom at East Preston School in Liittlehampton, Sussex and was enormously impressed with the impression our programmes left with the children. He is enthusiastic about BUPA’s involvement and said  “BUPA is keen to support Life Education. We can clearly see the business benefits of getting involved in health education partnerships, in particular those that positively impact on our customers, employees, their children and society as a whole.”

Through the development of this partnership both nationally and locally our plan is to involve BUPA in the work of Life Education so together and through community action we can help address some of the key health issues that face children today.

In Salford Quays in Manchester BUPA has already launched one mobile classroom allowing the local North West Life Education Trust to extend its service to another 40 schools each year.

BUPA sees building and maintaining healthy lifestyles as a key function of its business and provides an enormous amount of advice and support to parents about children’s health issues through their website which you can find here.



At his last board meeting in January trustee, Ken Medlock OBE, who recently celebrated his 90th birthday, announced his forthcoming retirement. Ken received a personal letter from HRH the Prince of Wales thanking him for his commitment to the charity which he had encourage our Australian Founder to bring to the UK now 15 years ago.

Ken who has worked tirelessly and enthusiastically for Life Education Centres for the last 10 years, as a trustee had previously been a keen supporter of our work when as Chairman of the Granada Telethon Trust Ken supported our work in the North West. Ken has meet His Royal Highness on a number of occasions and is photographed here with his wife at a Life Education event hosted by The Prince at his home in Gloucestershire.

Ken will officially retire at the end of March when he will also hand over the role of Company Secretary.

Chairman of the trustees Lord Russell said, “Our board owe a huge and collective debt to Ken for ensuring that our organisation has been able to bring our programmes to so many children all of whom would, he felt sure, themselves applaud Ken for his work if they knew of his unswerving commitment to their welfare”.

Ken was delighted to have received so many best wishes for his retirement from our operating groups around the country and would like to thank everyone for their kind remarks.



David Miliband, MP whilst Schools Standards Minister awarded Helen Johnson of Bradford Life Education, the Excellence in Cities Champion accolade for her work in helping the City’s parents. The seven-week courses that Helen runs aim to help parents improve family life and the wellbeing and education of their children.

Helen said that to be effective we have to reach parents.

“We go into schools and speak to pupils about the merits of eating five portions and fruit and vegetables every day but if their parents do not buy them they how can they make these choices?”

The seven-week course covers a broad range of health-related topics as well as behaviour management and how parents can take control in a caring way.

One mum who attended the course commented that she felt that for the first time ever she felt like she was not a failure as a parent, which is something she will continue to take around in her head. The course, which is run nationally, first came to Bradford in September 2004 as part of the Excellence in Cities programme, which covers schools in disadvantaged parts of the district.

For parents that may themselves had poor experiences at school this course can provide the confidence that will enable them to appreciate that their children can benefit from their help and guidance. For others the course can encourage them to improve their own numeracy and literacy so that they can play a more active role in their children’s school work.



Early this year with help and advice from the charity, Mentor UK and the University of Roehampton, Surrey Life Education agreed to commission important research into the factors which impact on children’s health decisions.

The aim of the report was to try to ensure that through our work we do all we can to ensure that it is effective.

This involved commissioning a detailed literature review about things that influence children’s health choices leading to a consultation with senior representatives from key statutory bodies and non-government agencies at Portcullis House in July.

Professor Mike Kelly, Director of Evidence and Guidance of the Health Development Agency, Simon Blake, Assistant Director, Children’s Development at the National Children’s Bureau and the Dr Peter Maguire, Deputy Chairman, Board of Science and Education of the British Medical Association presented their views on the findings to a wide ranging group.  More than 40 organisations were represented including the British Heart Foundation, Parent Education Support Forum, Drugscope, Children in Crisis, Food Standards Agency, British Lung Foundation, Save the Children Boots PLC and BUPA.

On advice of Louise O’Connor, then Senior Research Fellow at the University of Roehampton, LEC has embarked on a detailed evaluation of the services delivered by its own trusts focusing on how we add value to school health and drug education and, just as importantly, how we can promote community partnerships that support coherent and consistent health messages to children. This is a massive undertaking and we would be pleased to hear from anyone that may be interested in providing financial support for this initiative.
Email: healthyfuture@lifeeducation.org.uk

A copy of the report from the event can be downloaded here (pdf 280k).



The Health White Paper published in November addresses many issues of concern to Life Education.

The Wanless Report, published earlier in 2004, followed by the Government's Consultation Document, "Choosing Health" to which Life Education responded, provide the basis of this new measure. As recommended in the Wanless Report, the White Paper focuses on prevention, neatly complementing Life Education's healthy choice messages to children and their parents.

The main areas covered in the Health White Paper are Smoking, Alcohol, Nutrition and Exercise, together with Sexual Health, which so far does not play any large part in Life Education's programmes.

Much media comment focussed on the partial ban on smoking in public places which went further than some expected but predictably was criticised from various interest groups - anti-smoking campaigners for not going far enough and by the smoking lobby for going beyond what they argue the public says it wants.

Among the more unusual features of the White Paper are the provision of Personal Trainers and a new NHS service - Health Direct, a service offering advice on health choices, available by telephone, internet and digital television.

The full White Paper runs to more than 200 pages but a useful summary will be found on the DOH website at www.dh.gov.uk/publications. Enter "white papers" and then scroll down to "Launch of public health White Paper".



The National Collaborating Centre for Drug Prevention (NCCDP) is a research partnership between the Health Development Agency (HDA) and the Centre for Public Health at Liverpool John Moores University, and a broader network of experts in drug misuse theory and practice at local, national and international levels.

The NCCDP is funded by the HDA and is part of a UK wide network of Collaborating Centres established by the HDA to help build the evidence base in public health and to provide evidence about how to reduce inequalities in health.  By identifying the most effective characteristics of programmes and interventions, which have the most impact upon preventing drug misuse, the NCCDP will influence national and local policy and practice on drug misuse prevention.  It will provide guidance for those delivering front line drug prevention services.

In its first year the NCCDP will examine the evidence and assess the effectiveness of drug prevention initiatives and interventions for under 25 year olds. It will build on work already undertaken by the HDA.  This work supports the key priority of the National Drug Strategy, to reduce illicit drug use in this age group.

The NCCDP's first newsletter can be accessed by clicking here.








West Midlands Life Education is this January delivering the first of our Seven Week Parenting Skills Courses and Assembly Programmes as a result of their successful local bid to the Parenting Fund.

The grant for £97,285 was awarded by the National Family and Parenting Institute on behalf of the Department for Education and Science and was to enable the local Life Education Trust to deliver a total of 21 of the parenting skills courses and 24 of the assembly programmes between January this year and October 2006.

Lisa Nethercote from the trust who is the local project leader said, " This grant will allow us to translate the parent workbooks into three local community languages allowing us to focus the work in areas where particularly where Black and Ethnic Minority families have English as their second language."

The project is very much needs lead and with support from schools and Homestart, Life Education already has a number of parents on its waiting list.

The Assembly Programme is conducted in partnership with schools and allows a year group of children to showcase for family members their understanding of how to stay healthy. This is followed by a brief workshop for parents to look at issues relating to children's health and well-being.

The seven session allows the organization to provide parents with the knowledge and to develop skills so that they are more successful in managing family life and we plan that this should lead to an entry level Open College Network qualification for participants that want to pursue this.

Susan Kaplin, Life Education's Research Director has worked closely with Lisa to ensure that we are able to determine the change that the seven-week course makes to the lives of participating families by carefully monitoring the knowledge and skills acquired immediately after the course and then at a later date.



Over 50 people aged between 6 years and 68 braved the wind and rain to climb to the top of an historic Dorset Building and abseil down in aid of our local charity and raised nearly £3,000.

The sponsored abseil was held at Kingston Maurward just outside Dorchester and organised by Life Education Centres Dorset, which visits over 40,000 young Dorset children a year.

Seven year old Liberty Bingham, who abseiled with her 9 year old brother Devon, said "It was windy and raining when I was stood on the roof and I was really frightened when I had to stand on the edge of the top of the building and go over backwards.  My legs were wobbly when I finally got to the bottom but I was really pleased I'd done it and wanted to go back and do it again".

Liberty's mother who also followed her children down the side of the building said, "It was a really well organised and fun event and I was glad to be able to participate and help this charity to raise money for their important work. As a mother of young children and a teacher I am hugely relieved that an organisation sees the dangers and pressures our young children are facing today to ruin their lives through unhealthy life choices. Their message is a holistic approach and isn't just about the dangers of illegal substances. It also informs the children about the effects of poor diet, lack of exercise, smoking and excessive alcohol and how to overcome peer pressures when being urged to do things they don't want to."

Life Education Centres Dorset is unique in that they are the only organisation that delivers a complete health education to primary aged children. Although the work helps to support schools to meet the national curriculum and Government guidelines for health and drug education, it does not receive any significant government funding and relies almost totally on charitable donations raised through events such as the abseil.

Organiser, Jeanette McPhail, said, "the abseil has been a tremendous success and we are especially grateful to all the courageous participants, Kingston Maurward for allowing us to use their beautiful building and our sponsors, Cool Water of Weymouth, who not only helped us financially but also provided cold and hungry abseilers with hot drinks and soothing cool mineral water".



On December 10th Stephen Twigg MP, who has since been promoted to Minister for Schools Standards, supported the initiative to bring Life Education to Edmonton and Southgate. Both Stephen and local MP for Edmonton Andy Love attended the launch at Hazlebury, School in Edmonton where they meet some of the pupils that had attended the programme.

Photo: Stephen Twigg MP and Andy Love MP
in the mobile classroom with some pupils from Hazlebury

Headmistress Sue Jeffries of Hazlebury, School hosted the visit of 9 local schools to the mobile classroom during its stay at the school and praised the work carried out by Life Education and commented on the enthusiasm of all the children and teachers who had attended the programmes.

The Minister said he was delighted to support the initiative and said of Life Educations support of his departments work in the area of Personal Social Health and Citizenship Education, "It is one thing having Citizenship Education and Personal Social and Health Education in the curriculum but another thing making them work in practice and making them really relevant to children and the communities that schools serve and I believe Life Education is a brilliant example of how this can be done."

Edmonton, Rotarian and champion for Life Education in Enfield, Peter Kessler spoke on behalf of all the neighbouring Rotary Clubs when he said, "Our aim is to bring the attention of this work to schools in our area and to work in partnership with the local authority to ensure our children have the best possible start in life. Our task now is to raise the money to purchase our first classroom and I would love to hear from local businesses, individuals and clubs that would like to support our campaign." Anyone wishing to pledge their support for this initiative should in the first instance contact Life Education on 020 7831 9311 referencing this story.