Primary schools and the delivery of relationships and sexuality education: the experience of Queensland teachers

Abstract

Primary school provides an appropriate opportunity for children to commence comprehensive relationships and sexuality education (RSE), yet many primary school teachers avoid teaching this subject area. In the absence of teacher confidence and competence, schools have often relied on health promotion professionals, external agencies and/or one-off issue-related presentations rather than cohesive, systematic and meaningful health education. This study examines the implementation of a 10-lesson pilot RSE unit of work and an accompanying assessment task in two primary schools in South-East Queensland, Australia. Drawing predominantly from qualitative data, the research explores the experiences of primary school teachers as they engage with RSE curriculum resources and content delivery. The results show the provision of a highquality RSE curriculum resource grounded in contemporary educational principles and practices enables teachers to feel more confident to deliver RSE and minimises potential barriers such as parental objections and fear of mishandling sensitive content.

The outsourcing of health and physical education

“…This included publications that explored: the decisions and motivations of schools and external agencies to enter into educational partnerships 1,5,12 ; transitions of external agencies from extra-curricular activity provision to involvement in HPE lessons 24,26 ; the extent of reliance on external agencies to deliver HPE, 2,3,7,10,11,[14][15][16][17]22,27,28 and the preparedness of external providers to deliver highquality HPE in schools 9,23,25 or contribute to the professional development of teachers. 4 In addition, one publication mapped the services that are available to schools 13 and a number of articles sought to evaluate or critically engage with some of the 'solutions' that external agencies were providing.…”

“…single-sex students and coeducational), or school size, were only provided in eight articles. 2,3,[5][6][7]12,16,31 Of these, only two offered extensive commentary: one in the form of a table detailing the 'demographics of research population, sample and respondents', 5(404) and the other through a paragraph designed to exemplify the 'purposive sample of known characteristics in order to ensure that a diverse range [of schools] was chosen'. 16(2) It could be argued that this rich description should be provided in all articles, as the context will have significant implications for what influences supply of, demand for, and accessibility to, outsourcing services, and for how the reader interprets the data that have been generated through these studies.…”

“…[5][6][7][8]10,11,14,15,17,19,20,27 Analysis of the nature of the studied external providers was also instructive, with those directly mentioned having programmes related to general skills and fundamental movement 4 , sport-specific skills, 12,23,25 obesity prevention, 18,29 health, 30,31 and sexuality education. 2,3 While these specific papers offered insight into both the range of external services available and how schools are engaging with them in regards to the curriculum, only two examined whether external agencies themselves make any explicit links to curriculum objectives. 11,13 There was, however, evidence of external agencies developing their own curricula to implement within allocated HPE curricular time in order to examine its effect on the quantity and quality of these HPE lessons.…”

Developing and trialling a school-based ovulatory-menstrual health literacy programme for adolescent girls: a quasi-experimental mixed-method protocol

“…However, in Australia, many teachers lack training and confidence to facilitate contemporary relationships and sexuality education (RSE). In primary schools, qualitative studies have observed a tendency for teachers to outsource puberty education29 30 and that less than half of the female teachers felt very confident in teaching menstruation 31. In primary and secondary schools, a lack of confidence has been noted in teachers to deliver RSE programmes 32 33.…”

Sexuality education delivery in Australian regional secondary schools: A qualitative case study

“…Impediments upon teachers' confidence to deliver sexuality education have been widely documented. These include time constraints (Smith et al, 2011), lack of guidance regarding topics and depth of content (Johnson et al, 2014;Smith et al, 2013) and feeling as though other teachers did not value the work (Ollis and Harrison, 2016). A key component of teacher confidence is the extent to which teachers feel prepared to deliver content (Barr et al, 2014;Goldman and Coleman, 2013).…”