Breakout sessions - session 1

1.1 Exploring university students’ recollections of school sexuality education

Georgia Richards, Amy Watson, Alana Arnold, Sarah Smith, Lisa Thenfeldt, Clifton Hsieh & Rosemary Aird

Queensland University of Technology: School of Public Health . Brisbane, Qld

The process of developing effective responses to the sexuality education needs of school aged students will be significantly enhanced by expanding our understanding of young people’s experiences of this process.

This paper will present the results of focus group research, conducted by a small group of undergraduate university students in 2009. The students recruited participants from their campus, and conducted focus groups in groups of 6-10 students.

This research investigated three principle research questions:

1. what are your recollections of school based sexuality and relationships education?
2. what were the positive factors in the sexuality and relationships education that you received?
3. What do schools need to do differently to make sexuality relationships education more useful and relevant for young people?

Themes emerging from the focus groups discussion were analysed, and these will be explored in detail in this presentation.

Implications for future sexuality education programs, for tertiary level programs and for future research will be discussed.

1.2 At UQHMS: Preparing teacher education graduates for the rigours of sexuality education: the good, the bad and the ugly

University of Queensland : Department of Human Movement, Brisbane, Qld

This presentation provides insight into the strategies employed by The School of Human Movement Studies, The University of Queensland to prepare pre-service teachers for their roles in the delivery of sexuality education. We begin with an overview of the pedagogical and curriculum practices embedded into two courses within the Bachelor of Human Movement Studies (education) degree. A summary of the key messages and principle objectives of these courses will by identified. Following this introduction, three early career teachers will present a series of narratives that provide delegates with an appreciation of the challenges, facilitators and barriers they have faced in their attempts to implement quality programs of sexuality education in their school communities.

1.3The Whole-school approach to sexuality education in Victoria

Presentation in pdf format

Steven O’Connor
Senior Policy Officer Sexuality Education Policy and Project Development
Student Wellbeing & Health Support, DEECD,

Melbourne, Vic

Victoria ’s Whole-school Sexuality Education Project was conducted over the course of eighteen months (2005 - 2006) in partnership with La Trobe University and the Department of Health. This was a statewide sexuality education evaluation and development initiative. Key findings from the Project have led to the government policy decision that it is compulsory for all government schools to deliver sexuality education from prep to year 10, and that sexuality education does not require parent permission.

The Project’s findings have also led to the development of a ‘Model for Whole-school Learning in Sexuality Education’ which schools are encouraged to utilise when developing and evaluating their programs. A program development guide titled Catching On Everywhere was developed to support the model and distributed to all primary and secondary schools in 2008.

An extensive website known as Catching On-line has also been developed. This website provides specific webpages for school principals, teachers, parents and stakeholders. The website describes relevant policy in a plain language, contains downloadable resources and acts as a portal to other useful websites, including those that can be utilised by teachers in learning and teaching.

Sexuality education plays a leading role in ensuring that school curriculum is inclusive of sexual diversity and the Supporting Sexual Diversity in Schools online policy booklet was developed and distributed to all government school principals.

The Department continues to develop further resources and professional learning programs to support government schools in their capacity to meet the requirement to provide sexuality education and to provide it through an effective whole-school model. Resources under development include a primary school curriculum resource and the extension of the secondary school curriculum resource to all year levels.

This presentation will provide an overview of the Whole-school Sexuality Education Project, and some of the many policies and activities it has generated.

1.4 Sexuality education in our school

Presentation in pdf format

Carla Walker and Barbara Lloyd
Yeronga State School , Brisbane , Qld

• The school has had a program in operation for many years.
• The program was developed with one teacher taking the leadership role and working with a number of other teachers to develop a sequential program from year 1 to 7.
• Each year the teachers set aside the last two weeks of term 3 to complete the program.
• Also at this time we have the Life Education Van sessions which dovetails into the program.
• The class levels each have a workbook which the teachers designed originally and these books have been updated every few years to ensure it is relevant to the time.
• Each year level also uses some multi media components in their program.

It is expected that a brief introduction will be given of the history behind the development of the program and the PowerPoint will also show example pages from our booklet.

Question and answer time will be given at the end of the presentation.

1.5 Fully Alive Primary School Program

Presentation in pdf format

Jo Scott-Pegum and Alish Conley
Our Lady of the Way Primary
Brisbane, Qld

Recognising the need for educating students about sexuality, our school investigated what programs were available both locally and further afield. A program that some staff had used in prior schools was seen to give the most comprehensive program across the primary school years whilst still maintaining the Catholic Christian values that were a fundamental requisite.

The Fully Alive program was adopted by Our Lady of the Way Primary School several years ago as a whole school teaching learning program for sexuality.

Fully Alive is a Family Life program that was written through sponsorship by the Ontario Conference of Catholic Bishops in 1996.

The program has 7 levels which our school teachers from Year 1-7. The 5 themes in each level are:

• Created and Loved by God
• Living in a Relationship
• Created Sexual: Male and Female
• Growing in Commitment
• Living in the World

At our school the third theme is taught every year, the others are used as supplementary or support materials for other outcomes in the HPE syllabus.

Each of the 5 topics has a standard structure: teacher notes, experience, discovery and response. There are also optional activities. The program provides other materials including student books; family books and posters.

Whilst teaching this sensitive area is difficult for some teachers the comprehensive notes and resources make the lessons and unit as a whole much easier.

Parents are well informed about the teaching in this area and are generally very supportive of the program.

Whilst some of the stories and pictures are now dated, and teachers make choices about changing some of these, the information and the way it is presented remains very relevant.

1.6 A teacher’s journey with HRE

Cary Gordon
Glenvale State School
Toowoomba , Qld

This is the journey of a primary teacher who observed his first HRE lesson given by a specialist counsellor in 1986, with an open mind, but also watches the reactions of his Year 5 class with great interest. In the years that followed he became a team teacher during the specialist HRE lessons. Regular class reading time of HRE resources was also included during the four week block of lessons. An introduction and conclusion to the four lessons was done to reinforce the agreed rules and help break down barriers.

This was all done within a strict set of parameters to help encourage the best learning possible in a non-threatening environment.

The school remained involved after the counsellor had retired, but had a couple of mishaps with the program…HRE became a difficult topic again. The school is now going through a process to revisit the teaching of HRE, and this will also be done in a very structured way, and with much support for teaching staff. The journey continues…

1.7 Sexuality education as part of child sexual abuse prevention

Jennifer Sanderson Griffith University
Brisbane, Qld

This presentation aims to explore the role of comprehensive sexuality education in prevention of child sexual abuse programs. The presenter will discuss research on child-focused sexual abuse prevention programs and how this relates to the perpetration of child sexual abuse. There is a growing body of evidence that providing young children and their adult support networks with a sound understanding of healthy sexuality and appropriate sexual behaviour may be important in helping to prevent childhood sexual abuse and that comprehensive sexuality education has many lifelong benefits for children.

1.8 Strengthening Sexuality Education

Presentation in pdf format

Nina Fotinatos, Jenene Burke, Amanda Smith & Bernadette Duffy
University of Ballarat
Vic

Background:

“Strengthening Sexuality Education” is a crucial component of long-term successful health promotion strategies aimed at students in Ballarat and surrounding areas. Ballarat is one of the largest inland cities with a population over 90,000 and located 110kim NW of Melbourne (City of Ballarat , 2007). Since 2007, the Victorian Essential Learning Standards (VELS) have provided schools with descriptions outlining the specific achievements for students at various stages. Sexual health education is currently located within the Health and Physical Education domain (Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority, 2007). Although these guidelines exist for government schools, the teaching style and resources utilised are dependant of the staff and the school’s policy and practice in relation to puberty and sexuality education. External sexual health providers are often approached to deliver various puberty and sexual health programmes in both primary and secondary schools due to a number of factors, including lack of confidence and perceived skill. A number of issues have highlighted concerns regarding the consistency of puberty and sexual health education across the region and whether it is actually meeting the needs of the target audience.

Study Design:

Ballarat Community Health together with The University of Ballarat are evaluating the experience of sexual health education of students from two schools from the Ballarat and surrounding areas. This research incorporates focus group methodology in yr 7, 8 and 9 classes. Approximately 80 students per year level will be sampled in a 50% mix of gender. Themes that are under investigation include the following; resource attainment, usefulness of sexual topics currently taught, perceived levels of awareness; areas that require improvements; assessing delivery styles of sexual health topics and the overall effectiveness of sexual health education in relation to social and emotionall behaviour. The three methodology styles that will be used in this research are participant observation, conversation analysis and The Card Game. This mixed method approach will allow an analysis of both qualitative results using NVIVO or SPSS and quantitative results using appropriate statistical methods.

Outcome:

The findings of this research may potentially highlight the problematic themes that have been arising throughout general discussions in Ballarat and surrounding schools. Since this project is concerned with the yr 7-9 students, an extension of the investigation could assist with senior students. New valuable knowledge at this stage could also be steered into future teaching education standards and addressing these needs at the pre-service teacher level. Ultimately the research team strives to improve the sexual health education content and delivery style and ensure that it is effective and meeting the needs of the students.

References:

City of Ballarat 2009: http://www.ballart.vic.gov.au

Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority 2007: http://vels.vcaa.vic.edu.au/essential/index.html#standards

1.9 The S word

Presentation in pdf format

Miriam Taylor
Queensland Centre for Intellectual and Developmental Disability, University of Queensland
Brisbane, Qld

When we think about sexuality and people with intellectual disability, we only think in negatives and stereotypes. We rarely think of people with intellectual disability as sexual beings just like anyone else.

I will discuss the history of how services and society have responded to sexuality and sexual expression of people with an intellectual disability. A literature review reveals how workers, families and systems have responded to people with intellectual disability and their sexuality over a life span.

I will explore what people with intellectual disability have talked about and the life factors like medications and medical conditions which impact on their sexual expression.

In conclusion, I will talk about a range of working models to teach about living ordinary sexual lives like ordinary people.