What schools really think about Life Education

The 2008 Life Education National Evaluation

Since 2006 surveys have been distributed to teachers at schools where Life Education programs were conducted, to provide information to conduct an annual national evaluation. The teachers were asked to complete the survey after all of the follow-up activities had been undertaken.

The 2008 Life Education National Evaluation was carried out between January and December. 5884 responses were received from Government, Catholic, Independent, and other schools from the ACT, NSW, NT, QLD, SA, Vic and WA.

The 2008 results showed some promising feedback about the Life Education programs. Results showed that 98% of teachers responding recommended that the school re-book Life Education. 99% of teachers (equal to 2007 ) responding agree or strongly agree that the curriculum resources are a “valuable resource” and provide adequate information to support the integration of the Life Education program into their classroom programs.. 99% of respondent schools visited agreed that the Teacher Manual contained adequate information to support the classroom teacher to integrate the resource into their classroom program.

In relation to drug education, 66% of respondents indicated that Life Education is included in their school’s Drug Education Policy or action plan, and 02% or respondents rated the Life Education program as good to excellent in supporting their Drug Education Policy. Furthermore, 92% of schools visited stated that they would conduct drug education activities after the Life Education visit. This supports the notion that most schools use the Life Education visit as a springboard to their drug education program.

When comparing the data to the 2007 results, it could be noticed that improvements had been made. The proportion of teachers indicating that the Life Education educators assisted them in identifying other curriculum materials continued to rise in 2008 with 65% of ‘Yes’ responses compared to 49% in 2006 and 60% in 2007. The number of parent sessions facilitated has also increase from 51% to 59% between 2007 and 2008.