Teenage pregnancy - school aged young mothers

If you are of compulsory school age your school will not exclude you because you are pregnant. Usually there should be no health and safety issue connected with school attendance and your pregnancy. Your school must make reasonable adjustments for you and must allow you to continue to attend if that is what you wish to do.

You have the option of applying to attend one of the two specialist Young Parent Education Groups (YPEG) in County Durham. One group is held in Leadgate and the other is in Horden, Peterlee. Transport is provided.

If you attend one of the groups there is a wide range of services to support you during your time there both during pregnancy and after you have had your baby. The Young Parent Education Group can help you with support from teachers, learning support assistants, midwives, health visitors, family nurse practitioners, One Point advisors, help4teens and welfare rights advisors.

You will normally attend one of the groups from approximately 20 weeks into your pregnancy until your baby is 12 weeks old. We have a learning support assistant (LSA) who helps you return to the unit while you are keeping up with your education and working towards GCSE exams.

Re-integration back into school is planned with your family and school according to your individual needs. You can receive help with childcare costs through the Care to Learn scheme to continue attending school.

If you stay in the specialist units until the end of Year 11 you will be supported by One Point advisors with help into post-16 education, employment or training. Care to Learn also provides support with childcare costs for teenage parents above compulsory school age who continue with their learning because of the raising participation age.