Teenagers are relying more on magazines and teachers for advice about the facts of life as parents fail to provide a “moral code” for their children, say school inspectors.

The vacuum in parental guidance means that 13-year-old girls are more likely to seek guidance at school as they come under pressure from their peers.

An Ofsted study praised lads’ magazines for providing valuable reassurance and advice to teenage boys, even though it recognised that many were explicit and sexist. Ofsted also singled out the important service offered by school nurses who gave the morning-after pill to pupils.

The inspectors called for more drop-in centres at schools for teenagers and more guidance for parents to help them overcome their embarrassment at discussing sex with their children.

The study, based on research and 350 school inspections over five years, said that pupils felt some parents lacked the knowledge and skills to talk to them directly about sensitive issues.

However while many parents abdicated responsibility, they were anxious about the information their children were receiving. “Some parents express concern about the suitability of information that young people receive from other sources, such as magazines, even when these could be useful,” the report said.

“For example, the increase in the number of magazines aimed at young men, while at times reinforcing sexist attitudes, has helped to redress the balance of advice available to young people.”

As well as “hot girls, sport, sex, games and technology”, Maxim, FHM and Nuts offered sex advice by “the world’s hot-test porn star” and health tips such as 10 reasons to have breakfast and 15 top gym mistakes.

Derek Harbinson, the editor of Maxim, said: “Young men have an insatiable need for information and advice on sex, but you can’t lecture them. You have to couch it as entertainment or social ammunition.

“It’s about making them more popular with women and their friends, so instead of telling them why they shouldn’t be obese or smell, we talk about how to pull women.”

He said that teenage boys had rarely gone to parents for advice and, in the past, relied on sisters’ or girlfriends’ magazines.

The Ofsted report, which rejected advocating abstinence as ineffective, follows a recent poll by Teachers’ TV that found that almost three-quarters of parents with children at secondary school (74 per cent) admitted that they did not know whether their child was sexually active and 44 per cent had not spoken to their children in depth about sex.

Miriam Rosen, Ofsted’s director of education, said: “No matter how difficult it may be, parents and teachers have to discuss sensitive issues with their children and pupils to help them make the right choices as they grow up.

“But we do think they need more guidance. Certainly teachers who have been specially trained are more confident. One practical suggestion is for parents to start talking to their children about what they have done at school and go from there.”

Simon Brook, Chief Executive of Brook, the sexual health charity for young people, said he hoped that schools would take up Ofsted’s advice about drop-in centres and that sex education must be made compulsory.

“Too many young people still report that they are not getting the information and support they need around sex and relationships either at home or at school,” he said. “Making PSHE [personal, social and health education] a compulsory part of the national curriculum would be the best way to drive up standards of teaching across the board and to ensure young people have the information and the skills they need to make informed choices.”

Yesterday the Government said that it had trained more than 5,000 specialist PSHE teachers and would “take steps to improve the support we give to parents to talk about sex and relationships”.

Inspectors also said that although the number of young people drinking had dropped, “those who do drink do so significantly more than in the past”. It was “worrying” that many did not understand the link between drinking to excess and unprotected sex.

From frogs to morning-after pill

1960s The Pill marked the start of the sexual revolution, but most teenagers were still left in the dark. The more progressive teachers taught sex with the aid of the reproductive organs of dead rats and frogs

1970s Sex became part of health education for the first time, and diagrams and photographs appeared in classrooms. But teachers were still coy about the subject and pictures often missed out key parts of the genitalia, such as the clitoris

1980s Aids and HIV put sex education at the top of the schools’ agenda. The Sex Education Forum was set up and each school was expected to have its own sex-education policy

1990s Sex education was taught in primary schools, as long as parents did not object. Formal guidance from the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority was given to all teachers

2000s More than half of 14 and 15 year olds were still being taught about parts of the body and the mechanics of sex were covered by less than half of schools in 2000, according to research. Teenage pregnancies were the highest in Europe

Source: Times database

Times Recommends

• Alex Rider exclusive: Incident in Nice
• Green & confused: do energy-saving bulbs work?
• Let’s skip lunch, say the hungry generation