The Teaching of Sexuality Education in Years 7-13 (June 2007) 01/06/2007

Summary of findings

This section presents the overall findings of this evaluation and compares these with the findings of ERO’s 2006 evaluation of the quality of teaching of Health and Physical Education and ERO’s 1996 review of sexuality education.

Overall effectiveness

ERO evaluated the overall quality of teaching of sexuality education by investigating the following seven areas:

• the content of the sexuality education programme;
• the use of teaching and learning resources;
• the subject and pedagogical knowledge of teachers;
• how well schools were meeting the needs of diverse students;
• assessment;
• student engagement; and
• school culture.

For each area, ERO identified some highly effective and ineffective schools. There were no schools that were highly effective across all seven areas, and none that were not effective across all areas. In summary:

• Twenty-one schools were effective or highly effective across all seven areas.
• Fifty-seven schools were effective in some areas but only partially effective in other areas.
• Twenty-two schools were partially effective with substantial weaknesses or not effective in all areas investigated.

Overall, just over a fifth of the schools reviewed were effective or highly effective in all aspects of this evaluation.

ERO found that the majority of schools have areas for improvement in their teaching of sexuality education. Of special concern are the 20 percent of schools that had substantial weaknesses in their teaching of sexuality education.

The findings identify two areas of particular weakness across schools. These are assessing learning in sexuality education and meeting the needs of diverse groups of students. Around two thirds of schools in this evaluation needed to improve their performance significantly in these areas.

Comparison by school type

ERO compared the performance between schools of different deciles, and primary and secondary schools.[1]

Primary and secondary schools

Secondary schools were more likely than primaries to have teachers with better subject and pedagogical knowledge, and students who were effectively motivated and engaged.[2] The finding that secondary schools were more likely to have teachers with better subject knowledge and pedagogy than primary schools is consistent with the information provided by schools in the first section of the findings. It is not surprising that teachers with the knowledge and skills to teach well were more able to engage their students in learning than those that had incomplete skills or knowledge.

School decile group

ERO found that mid and high decile schools were more likely to have teachers with better subject and pedagogical knowledge than low decile schools.

State and integrated schools

The review found no differences between state-integrated and state schools other than that integrated schools were better at meeting the needs of students who might hold strong cultural or religious beliefs.

2006 ERO review of the quality of teaching of health and physical education

ERO evaluated the quality of teaching of Health and Physical Education, of which sexuality education is a part, in 2006. The findings from this evaluation are highly consistent with the sexuality education evaluation. Both reports identified assessing student achievement and teaching diverse students as key areas of improvement for schools.

Similar to the sexuality education evaluation, ERO found that many schools did not have effective school-wide processes for the planning, assessment, reporting, and evaluation of health and physical education. ERO also identified a group of schools that were not consulting regularly with their school communities about the content and implementation of the health education components of the curriculum.

1996 ERO review of sexuality education

ERO last reviewed the sexual and reproductive health component of the school curriculum in 1996.[3] At that time, schools followed the Syllabus for Schools Health Education in Primary, and Secondary Schools[4] and sex education was not compulsory. Consequently, ERO did not use the same evaluative questions in this evaluation as in the 1996 review. Nevertheless some comparisons can be made.

Improvements since the 1996 report include the following:

• more schools meet legislative requirements;
• more schools have teachers with specialist training in sexuality education;
• more time is allocated to teaching sexuality education;
• fewer schools rely exclusively on outside providers, and more schools are delivering sexuality education without using outside providers;
• better support networks exist for diverse groups of students; and
• secondary school programmes take a less biological, more relationship-focused approach with a new emphasis on making decisions about sexual involvement, and are led by health or religious education departments rather than science departments.

Similarities with the 1996 report include:

• a pattern of student participation reducing with each year level;
• limited scope of sexuality education at Years 7 and 8; and
• limited levels of support services provided for some students.

[1] This was done statistically by applying a Mann-Whitney or Kruskal-Wallis H test with a significance value set at less than 0.5 percent.

[2] For statistical analysis of findings by school type, the full primary and intermediate schools were grouped as ‘primary’ (38 schools), and all schools that included students beyond Year 8 were grouped as ‘secondary’ (62 schools).

[3] Education Review Office, Reproductive and Sexual Health Education. A report provided by the Education Review Office for the Ministry of Health, New Zealand: 1996.

[4] Ministry of Education, Syllabus for Schools’ Health Education in Primary and Secondary Schools, (New Zealand: Government Print, 1989.