About 170 students in the Face the Facts sessions looked into tobacco, alcohol, legal and illegal drugs – the law, myths and facts, what might influence young people to use them, and the short- and long-term consequences.

Life Education NSW head educator Angela Green led the Year 8 and 9 students through information and activities including using “alcohol vision” glasses, role-playing scenarios and watching audiovisual content.

Mrs Green said young people should be armed with as much information as possible about the hazards of harmful behaviours.

However, the program faced the reality that a “just say no” approach was often unrealistic and sometimes hypocritical.

“Abstinence is one end of the spectrum, and death and permanent harm is the other end – and there’s a whole range of responses in between,” she said.

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Some of the ways to minimise harm could be as simple as lessening the effects of alcohol by drinking water, or making sure all the friends that go out together go home together.

Year 9 Links to Learning co-ordinator Duane Miller said the school was taking a proactive approach to the health and wellbeing of its students by bringing in the Life Education program.

“We know that most students are making good choices and are not using alcohol, tobacco and illicit drugs,” Mr Miller said.

“However, young people today face many challenges, and it is important to work with them to find solutions.”

Mrs Green agreed: “The good news is health prevention messages are getting through,” she said.

“Over the whole, alcohol and tobacco use are on the decline in our young people, so much so that some people have dubbed them the ‘sober generation’.

“However, drug and alcohol education is still vitally important.

“We know that alcohol causes the most drug-related deaths among teenagers in Australia, and harms associated with drugs such as methamphetamine or ‘ice’ are on the rise, particularly in areas of regional NSW.”

Wellbeing head teacher Irem Mooney said the school engaged many people during the year to talk with students on topics that affected not only their academic but also personal lives.

“We try to get as many external providers as we can to give a different perspective on drug education with the kids; and all other aspects of health and wellbeing, whether it’s positive outlook, or drug education, or cyber safety, or resilience – all the life skills,” Mrs Mooney said.

Life Education delivers health and safety education to more than 6000 students from 51 preschools and primary schools in the Tamworth region.

Due to school and parent demand, it is expanding into the region’s secondary schools.

The Face the Facts module builds on Life Education’s upper primary drug education Decisions program, which it launched in Tamworth in 2016.

The Hunter New England local health district has the highest incidence of methamphetamine-related hospitalisations in the state, according to HealthStats NSW data.

In 2015-16 there were 893 methamphetamine-related hospitalisations in Hunter New England LHD.

A recent Life Education survey of more than 1000 Australian parents found that their children using illegal drugs was second only to online safety as their main concerns, with 93 per cent of parents rating it as a very important issue.