Richie Sadlier joins Cork teacher in new education initiative 

A Cork teacher has launched a new national education initiative with psychotherapist and broadcaster Richie Sadlier.

Riverstick native, Pam O’Leary, who is a teacher and guidance counsellor, has partnered with former professional footballer Sadlier to launch ‘Let’s Talk SPHE’.

The initiative comes as part of a major reform to senior cycle education which requires all post-primary schools to deliver approximately 60 hours of SPHE across fifth and sixth year by 2027.

According to figures published by the Department of Education, only 18% of schools were previously timetabling SPHE in fifth year during the 2021/2022 academic cycle, meaning the majority of schools will now need to significantly expand their provision over the coming years.

Ms O’Leary said SPHE has been “under-resourced in schools for a long time, so I’m really excited to team up with Richie to create these resources for the new curriculum”.

“By combining Richie’s psychotherapy insights with my teaching experience and pedagogy, we’ve created lessons that are nuanced and specifically tuned into the needs of young people today,” said Ms O’Leary.

“It has been a dream of mine to support teachers and students by developing resources like this.

“They’ve been created very carefully and thoughtfully with the realities of the classroom and the needs of young people in mind.” 

 Ms O’Leary also highlighted how the senior cycle SPHE curriculum has evolved significantly in recent years, as there is “now much greater focus on topics such as personal safety, harm reduction, and helping young people understand their rights and responsibilities, particularly in online spaces”.

‘Let’s Talk SPHE’ is currently being piloted in more than 40 secondary schools nationwide and is expected to reach approximately 20,000 students from September.

For more information, visit https://letstalksphe.com/