Evaluating the impact of SRE lessons

One of the most confounding challenges of coordinating a Sex and Relationship Education project across a city is how to assess the impact of such a project. Working in a limited number of schools for a relatively short period of time(a couple of years) excludes any regional statistics from being directly related or representative. Also regional statistics focus on two things conception rates and STI infection rates.

However, our Sex and Relationship project focus on attitudes and behaviours as much as biological consequences. It is difficult to assess the attitudes of a group. Interviews individually or in groups may work but it is very personal and questions could possibly be inappropriate. Instead of interviews we have written an anonymous quiz that attempts to evaluate both attitudes and looks at knowledge. We have used this in one school already I hope to post some of the statistical results in the near future.

Below is a small 2 page quiz is all about trying to evaluate what is the impact of a sex and relationship programme. The aim of this evaluation is to assess both knowledge and skills. Please download it, have a look and comment about how useful it would be to you.

Sex and Relationship Quiz

Comments

Agree - Disagree Sex and Relationship Statements

Today I shared another resource listing the agree disagree statement I often use in Relationship lessons. I find agree disagree activities as a bit of a two edge sword. Sometimes they are great and sometimes they just seem flat.

I think agree/disagree activities work well if young people in the group do not all think the same. The true value in agree/disagree activities is the discussion it can stir up. The discussion is the point where young people learn things and develop their attitudes. The statements need to be crafted to try and divide opinion and stir up this discussion. When the statements do not divide group opinion then rarely will I get a good follow up discussion. The problem is that the statements that work well for one group do not work for another group.

The temptation is to try and pick truly controversial issues but I have had as much success with the historically controversial issues (abortion, porn etc) as the more standard issues (loyalty, respect, condoms, etc). T…

Playing with figures of sexual health

A single research project can be reported on in different ways depending on what you want to do. Take the following two articles both reporting on the same research by the Archives of Pediatric & Adolescent Medicine. The research shows how many girls in the study thought the HPV vaccine also reduced their risk of catching other STIs.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2083260/One-teenage-girls-thinks-HPV-vaccine-cuts-risk-contracting-STDs.html
http://www.healthnews.com/en/news/Some-Girls-Overestimate-HPV-Vaccine-Protection/3hFUdOev1E8wSjg313QPZq/

The daily mail report emphasis 1 in 4, I believe this is because they are trying to show how it is a big problem. Where as Health News states "show that a small percentage of girls" I believe this is because they are trying to show it is not a big problem. Both quoting the same study with the same figure of 23.6% of girls having the HPV vaccine believing it will reduce their risk of catching other STIs.

Now this is a common o…

Review of Channel 4's Sex in Class

Review of Channel 4's Sex in Class from a relationship and sex educator's perspective.In this review I will try and bring my perspective as a relationship and sex educator to look at Channel 4's one off show Sex In Class. The show is about a Belgian sexologist Goedele Liekens testing out her approach to relationship and sex education for 15-16 year olds at a Lancashire school. You can read some great overall reviews from Jules Hillier at Brook and Sam Wollaston at the Guardian of the show. In this blog I am trying to focus specifically on my my perspective as a relationship and sex educator on Goedele's content and approach.

The show starts with a pretty unsurprising statistic of "83% of kids have seen porn by the time they are 13" (source not cited) and goes on to show how teachers at this school don't think current RSE is good enough and also gives some quotes from young people involved. Such as "It [porn] doesn't give you a lot of information…

Blindfish RSE

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