John used to run in-service training sessions in health education for teachers, looking at what should be done in the name of, say, drugs education or sex education, and found he had provoked what were sometimes very heated discussions. One theme of the discussions were claims about what young people in their school were doing -- maybe 'there's none of that in my school' or 'they're all at it'. But do we have any evidence for these claims? They can be based on important local incidents or personal experience, but maybe these are only partial views of what is going on.
John formed the view that an anonymous survey of all pupils could provide a better basis for discussions about what the situation was like locally and what then can be done to support pupils.
