The purpose for this study was to investigate what role schools play in the dissemination of health knowledge to a rural community. It attempted to understand the relationship between modified health teaching methods and the level of health knowledge of the household head, and also the relationship between the sex and the level of education of the school child and the level of health knowledge of the household heads. A sample of 120 school girls and 120 school boys from three levels of education was randomly selected from 2 primary and 2 secondary schools, which are situated in Matungulu and Mbiuni locations of Machakos district. Matungulu location was selected as the experimental area and ~fuiuni as the control. Pretest data was collected from all the children of the study sample and their household heads. Health Education was then given to sixty girls and sixty boys from one primary and one secondary school in Matungulu location; while the other sixty boys and sixty girls from Mbiuni location served as the control group.After a period of six months, posttest data was collected from all the school children in the study sample and their household heads. Between the pretest and posttest periods, there was a 4 per cent and 8 per cent change in the health knowledge levels of the household heads of the control and experimental groups respectively. No relationship was found between the sex of the child and the health knowledge levels of the household heads of both groups. There was a relationship between the level of education of the child and the health knowledge levels of the household heads. The advantages and weaknesses of the improved health teaching methods used in this study, as well as the revealed communication patterns between children and the family key persons as they are affected by the sex and level of education of the child; can be used as guidelines in the planning and implementation of community health education programmes, and especially for rural communities.