CHRISTMAS APPEAL: TAKING THE DRUGS FIGHT TO SCHOOL

In the Latest in Our Series, Paul Vallely Looks at an Anti-Drugs Unit
Working With Primary Children

There is one in every class. At the back of the room a hand kept going
up in response to the question as to whether anyone knew the names of
any illegal drugs. The boy in the very back row had already offered
all the obvious ones. "Smack," he shouted out, with a smirk.
"Chickers," he offered next, using the current Leeds slang for
ecstasy. The boy was 10.

The woman at the front of the class, Michelle Costello, was not
dismayed or shocked. Indeed, this was what she wanted. She wrote it
all down on the whiteboard.

It is not surprising that no one seemed shocked at the streetwise
10-year-old from Parklands Primary School in the Seacroft area of
Leeds. D: side, the drugs project for which Ms Costello works, was set
up in the city in response to a report which shocked even hardened
drugs professionals 10 years ago. Then, two boys, aged eight and nine,
were discovered injecting themselves with heroin. Teachers in some
schools in the city now check playing fields for needles before school
sports can begin.

The d:side project was set up by Children in Crisis, one of the
charities in this year's Independent Christmas Appeal. It was a
controversial project when it began, for it adopted a non-judgemental
approach to drugs, offering accurate information about the effects
that drugs and alcohol can have, without glamorisation or
demonisation. More than that, it worked with primary school children,
raising the worry that it might give ideas, rather that just
information, to children.

"When discussing illegal drugs we only list those they shout out so we
don't introduce new drug names," said Ms Costello. "And we always use
the third person; we never say 'you' to kids in describing anything,
because the research shows the first step in doing anything is
imagining yourself doing it.

"On the other hand, we don't use scare tactics. You lose credibility
if you tell kids 'you'll die if you take this drug' when they all know
people who're taking it and haven't died. Also, when talking about
smoking and alcohol, we don't want them taking such a hard line that
they'll get into trouble when they go home with parents who smoke or
drink."

Not all parents approve. One group withdrew their children from a
d:side class because it was insufficiently judgemental. The charity
offers parents and teachers sessions in advance to allay such fears.
"When you see it in action," said one Parklands teacher, Heather Knox,
who co-ordinates personal, social, health and citizenship education
for the school, "you realise they tread a fine line with great skill.
Their people are well-trained and they pitch things correctly."

The approach is well grounded in a body of academic and practical
findings. " Research shows that children need to learn all this at
least four years prior to the age of first experimentation, which is
currently, on average, 10, and coming down," said the project manager,
Zoe Davis. "Attitudes are very hard to change once they have been
formulated at age 12/13."

Evidence also shows that the most effective programmes are
interactive, which is why the charity holds its classes in a big
custom-built van - kitted out with a giant computer screen, a
star-studded ceiling, videos, music, puppets and a robot from the
planet Zargon. It also has pull-apart plastic brains, to highlight the
effect different drugs have on different sectors of the brain, and
with what consequences for the body.

"Children remember 20 per cent of what they read, 30 per cent of what
they hear, 40 per cent of what they see, 50 per cent of what they say,
60 per cent of what they do and 90 per cent of what they see, hear,
say and do," said Zoe. So role-play is a major tool in teaching.

While one class at Parklands were donning distorted spectacles called
" beer goggles", and being made to walk round furniture and catch
balls without falling over, another was playing Conscience Alley, in
which the class divided into two lines, each one charged with shouting
pro- and anti-cannabis messages to pupils taking turns to walk the
gauntlet. A third element has developed as the project has discovered,
on the job, what works. It is that learning "resistance skills" is
vital. Children are taught strategies on how "to say no", present
facts, change the subject, make excuses and to walk away.

"It's fantastic," said Stephen Fisher, the headteacher at Parklands.
"They come in and talk with authority about a subject which for many
teachers is an unknown world. With a catchment area like ours the
children know more about drugs than the teachers do." The end result
is children who have the information they need to make well-informed,
sensible choices, and the skills and confidence to do so.