Background: Warwickshire County Council’s Respect Yourself Campaign (RYC) plans to gradually implement Spring Fever (SF) Relationships and Sex Education teaching programme across primary schools in Warwickshire. Prior to wide-scale rollout, a pilot evaluation study has been conducted in order to inform future implementation. Aim: The pilot evaluation aims to establish how successfully Spring Fever could be implemented within primary schools in its existing form. Methods: In 2013, SF was piloted within one primary school. It was delivered from reception year to year 6 over one week, with pupils receiving one hour of teaching each day. To examine the factors that have helped or challenged SF delivery, the evaluation design included four methods: Teachers’ Checklist and Feedback form (n=10); Teachers’ Focus Group (n=9); Parents’ daily diary (n=7) and Parents’ interviews (n=7). Quantitative analyses were conducted on data collected through the teachers’ checklist and feedback forms to assess the extent to which leaning objectives were achieved and to give an overall impression of implementation fidelity. Content analysis was conducted on data collected through focus groups with teachers, interviews with parents and on answers and comments from checklist and feedback forms and parents’ daily diaries. Findings:Three main categories of factors that influenced the implementation of SF were identified: ‘Personal Factors’ (teachers’, pupils’ and parents’ characteristics), ‘Organizational factors’ (school’s characteristics and delivery context) and factors related to the programme itself. Overall, the findings identified 18 recommendations to guide programme enhancement and subsequent implementation. Discussion: This project has helped to identify how best to secure the future successful adoption and implementation of the Spring Fever program me which is a crucial last step in intervention delivery. A phased roll-out of the programme in Warwickshire will now commence.

1. Mathieu-C., S12;*Newby, K1; Hubbard, S.3 Danahay, A.4 & Martin, E.4
1. Background
Warwickshire County Council’s Respect Yourself Campaign plans to
gradually implement Spring Fever (SF) Relationships & Sex Education
teaching programme across primary schools in Warwickshire.
SF has been adapted from an existing Dutch version. The teaching
programme is delivered within one week across all school years.
In 2013, the programme was piloted within one school. SF was
delivered from reception year to year 6 over one week, with pupils
receiving one hour of teaching each day.
Process Evaluation of the
Pilot Spring Fever
Relationships and Sex Education
Teaching Programme for
Primary Schools
1 Coventry University, 2University of Montreal
3The Revel School, Warwickshire 4 Warwickshire County Council
4. Findings
Globally, the first delivery of Spring Fever was quite successful.
In terms of the fidelity of implementation, the level of delivered
exercises and achieved learning objectives was relatively high, but
varied substantially across school years (see table 1).
Three major categories of factors modulated SF delivery:
Organizational factors
School characteristics
• Ex. School’s ethos
Communication with
parents
• Ex. SF Introduction meeting
Pilot Evaluation
context
• Ex. Need for adjustments
Factors related to the
programme
General characteristics
• Ex. The one week
formula
Learning activities and
teachning material
• Ex. Step by step
instruction
5. Recommendations
18 recommendations were made which address factors that have helped or
challenged the first delivery of SF. Some are relevant to the school which
participated in this evaluation, but others are relevant to future schools in
terms of drawing on their best practice.
Recommendations included:
• Regarding teachers : Provide opportunities for teachers to express their
level of (dis)comfort at the idea of delivering SF and provide support if
needed, and an option to opt out of delivery.
• Regarding pupils : Instruct teachers to adjust teaching strategies and
learning activities to fit pupils’ characteristics and reactions toward
different topics covered by SF, including making sure appropriate
changes or support is provided to those with special needs.
• Regarding parents : Preserve the meeting that introduced SF as one of
the strategies to communicate with parents.
• Regarding the school : Address incompatibilities between SF’s objectives
and the school ethos and religious culture so that teachers and parents
feel comfortable. If needed, adjust the programme in order to respect
the school organizational culture without losing SF’s main objectives.
• Regarding the programme : Ensure that all the teaching material is
translated, culturally adapted and ready to be owned by teachers.
*Contact Katie Newby: k.newby@coventry.ac.uk;
www.healthinterventions.co.uk
2. Aim
Prior to wide-scale rollout, a pilot evaluation study was conducted in
order to inform future implementation. The aim was to establish how
successfully Spring Fever could be implemented within primary
schools in its existing form.
3. Methods
The evaluation design included four methods:
1. Teachers’ Checklist and Feedback form (n=10)
2. Teachers’ Focus Group (n=9)
3. Parents’ daily diary (n=7)
4. Parents’ interviews (n=7)
Quantitative analyses were conducted on data collected
through the teachers’ checklist and feedback forms to assess
the extent to which leaning objectives were achieved.
Content analysis was conducted on data collected through
focus groups with teachers, interviews with parents and on
answers from feedback forms and parents’ daily diaries.
Table 1. Percentage of Exercises delivered, Extra Exercises and
Year
Achieved Objectives by School Year
Exercises delivered
as specified1
Learning objectives
achieved2
Recep. (n=2)3 87% (13/15) 88% (11,5/13)
One (n=1) 94% (15/16) 100% (14/14)
Two (n=1) 100% (13/13) 79% (11/14)
Three (n=1) 73% (11/15) 94% (17/18)
Four (n=1) 82% (9/11) 79% (15/19)
Five (n=2) 55% (11/20) 77% (23/30)
Six (n=2) 15% (2/13) 25% (5,5/22)
Global 71.18% (74/103) 74.6% (97/130)
1 Percentages represent the proportion of exercises delivered in full as specified in the lesson plans.
2 Percentages represent the proportion of learning objectives achieved as assessed by the teacher(s).
3 When Spring Fever was delivered by more than one teacher per year, percentages represent the mean between the two teachers.
Personnal factors
Teachers’
characteristics
• Ex. Level of confort
Pupils’ characteristics
• Ex. Response to sensitive
topics – « Red lessons »
Parents’
characteristics
• Ex. Apprehension about sex
education
L
6. Next steps
This project has helped to identify how best to secure the future successful adoption and implementation of the Spring Fever programme
which is a crucial last step in intervention delivery. A phased roll-out of the programme in Warwickshire will now commence. A long-term
longitudinal trial is now needed to establish the efficacy of Spring Fever.