CHILDREN’S CHARITY, CORAM LIFE EDUCATION, AND HEART RADIO BRING UK’S LARGEST MOBILE CLASSROOM SCHEME TO ESSEX
NEWS RELEASE AND PHOTO CALL
15 September 2011- 11.30AM, Mountnessing CfE Primary School,
Brentwood, CM15 0UH, Contact- Rachel Jasper 020 7520 0427 or 07949 561891
Embargoed until 00.01 Thursday 15 July 2011
Heart Breakfast presenters Martin and Su will get a lesson in healthy living, as they join school children in Brentwood for the launch of Coram Life Education (CLE) in Essex.
Youngsters at Mountnessing CfE Primary School will be stepping into a brand new mobile classroom with a difference donated by Heart’s charity Have a Heart.
Once on board, children can meet puppets, take part in role play and watch films to learn about self-esteem, drugs awareness, anti-bullying techniques and healthy lifestyle choices, as part of the specially designed Coram Life Education programme delivered by educators from Life Education Essex.
Have a Heart is providing the mobile classroom as part of a grant from its Healthy Hearts health education programme, with the support of financial group ICAP. Healthy Hearts aims to improve the health of children under the age of eleven, with inter-active, accessible and impactful health education focusing on diet and exercise; as well as alcohol, smoking and drug abuse.
To help build on what children will learn about in the mobile classrooms and to reach a wider audience, Have a Heart has also funded a range of new fun online health-based activities for children, including food ‘snap’ and a smoothie making game. There are also online parenting tips which include advice on increasing good behaviour and communication skills. (Visit the Kids’ Zone and Parents’ Area at www.coram.org.uk)
Coram Life Education will also use the grant to fund 10 electronic voting systems called Qwizdoms, which enable children to take part in game show style quizzes based around healthy living.
“Coram Life Education is delighted to be bringing our programme to Essex schools, and we thank Have a Heart and ICAP for making this possible,” said CLE Operations Director, David Burton. “We know that helping our children to become more informed and more assertive can make a big difference to the choices they make in later life. We hope to make a tangible improvement to the health and well-being of tens of thousands of children here for many years to come.”
Recent research with children who have taken part in the Coram Life Education programme shows its exceptional success rate: 87% of children knew more about keeping healthy; 76% recognised how their emotions and needs change in different situations; 88% understood how others influence the choices they make about smoking, alcohol and other drugs; and 69% reported they had learned to be more assertive.
Life Education Essex will visit schools in the region reaching up to 10,000 local school children this year. Nationally, CLE currently reaches 800,000 children every year in nearly a quarter of UK schools, teaching life skills to children aged 3-11 years old through fun, interactive and age-specific activities.
For more information about Coram Life Education and availability in your area visit www.coram.org.uk/lifeeducation or call 020 7843 1290.
Ends
Press contacts: Rachel Jasper, Coram Marketing & Communications, on 020 7520 0427 or 07949 561891 or rachelj@coram.org.uk
Notes to Editors:
About Coram
Coram is the UK’s first children’s charity, launched in 1739, which helps some of the UK’s most vulnerable children to dramatically improve their life chances.
We intensively support 15,000 children and their families across the UK, run the nation’s most successful voluntary adoption service and reach more than 800,000 school children through Coram Life Education’s mobile health, drug and alcohol education classrooms. The Coram Life Education programme, established in the UK for over 20 years, is an internationally respected provider of high-quality and strongly evidence-based drugs and health education. It is used in over 4,000 out of the 16,971 schools in the UK, reaching more than 800,000 children every year.
Visit www.coram.org.uk to find out more about our work.
About Have a Heart’s Healthy Hearts
Healthy Hearts is the new health education programme that Heart radio’s charity Have a Heart will deliver with the support of ICAP. The objective is to provide children under the age of eleven, with inter-active, accessible and impactful health education focusing on diet and exercise; as well as alcohol, smoking and drug abuse. Via face to face intervention, and by harnessing ICT, Healthy Hearts aims to reach less advantaged communities and young people who are identified as ‘hard to reach’ or ‘in need’ of health intervention. We want to reach parents via their children, reversing the notion of negative ‘pester power’, and encouraging young people to relay health messages to their families.
