Spring Fever

Role: Project lead

Funder: Warwickshire County Council

Dates: 2013

Background

The Department of Education made Relationships Education compulsory in English primary schools from 2020, with sex education recommended. Ahead of this announcement, Warwickshire County Council (WCC) took the decision to make a comprehensive programme of sex and relationships education (SRE) available to all primary schools within their county. 'Spring Fever', a Dutch SRE teaching programme for primary schools, was translated and adapted for use. Spring Fever is designed to be delivered within one week across all school years accompanied by a week-long promotional event. In 2013, the programme was piloted within one school in rural Warwickshire. One teacher at the pilot school was trained as a trainer by Respect Yourself’s Dutch partners. This teacher then trained all teachers delivering the programme in the school. The aim of this research was to conduct a process evaluation of this pilot in order to inform future cross-county roll-out.

What did we do?

Data were collected through a teachers’ feedback form (n = 10), teachers’ focus group (n = 9); a parent diary (n = 7), parents’ interviews (n = 5), parent feedback (n = 41) and pupil feedback (n = 24).

What did we find?

Reach was high with few pupils withdrawn by parents (5 of 302). Fidelity to the lesson plans and achievement of learning objectives was high for most school years; in year 6 however teachers had adapted/omitted substantial parts of the curriculum due to their own discomfort, or the perceived discomfort of pupils, with the content. This was corroborated by pupils themselves; whilst it was clear that learning had occurred across all school years, pupils in year 6 had been uncomfortable with some topics (sex and sexual body parts). Overall pupils had however enjoyed the programme and responded well.Teachers were largely positive about the programme. Parents felt that it was age-appropriate, informative and handled sensitively.

Impact

A report on the process evaluation was produced for WCC. This included recommendations addressing programme delivery, organisational factors and the programme itself. Examples include, devoting time for the school team to discuss preconceptions and apprehensions related to Spring Fever before its delivery, and implementing strategies to engage parents with delivery, both to inform them of content but also to facilitate further conversations at home which could reinforce and extend learning. On the basis of these findings, WCC adapted the programme (re-named 'All about me') prior to roll-out. All About Me was delivered across Warwickshire primary schools between 2013-2020. Unfortunately, in 2020 All About Me was replaced due to local objection about the programme content.

Publications

Newby, K.V., Mathieu-Chartier, S. (2018). Spring Fever: Process Evaluation of a Sex and Relationships Education Programme for Primary School Pupils. Sex Education, 18(1) pp. 90-106, DOI: 10.1080/14681811.2017.1392297