RSE
RSE Curriculum:
Relationships and Sex Education (RSE) is defined by the PSHE Association as ‘learning about the emotional, social and physical aspects of growing up, relationships, sex, human sexuality and sexual health’.
The aim of RSE is to equip our young people with the knowledge, skills and values they need to have safe, fulfilling and enjoyable relationships and to take responsibility for their physical, sexual and emotional health and wellbeing.
At Royton & Crompton E-ACT Academy, RSE will form an integrated part of our Life Skills (PSHCE) provision going forward.
The school RSE education will meet the statutory requirements and support the academy’s values of honesty, excellence, aspiration, inclusion and equality. The provision will account for students’ age and maturity levels, as well as their cultural and religious backgrounds. Our provision will also ensure students know how to be healthy and safe in school, in their personal relationships and in the wider world.
This RSE curriculum is sequenced to build on subject-specific curriculums including the science curriculum’s study of the human reproductive system, whilst ensuring that we have tailored our provision to consider age-appropriate delivery points. The building of knowledge and life skills over time is sequenced to prepare students for issues they will soon face. This will include:
- Healthy bodies and lifestyles, including keeping safe, puberty, drugs and alcohol education.
- Different types of relationships, including friendships, family relationships, dealing with strangers and, intimate relationships.
- How to recognise, understand and build healthy relationships, including self-respect and respect for others, commitment, tolerance boundaries and consent, and how to manage conflict, and also how to recognise unhealthy relationships.
- How relationships may affect health and wellbeing, including mental health.
- Healthy relationships and safety online.
- Factual knowledge, around sex, sexual health and sexuality, set firmly within the context of a healthy relationship.
Our RSE curriculum is in line with current regulations from the Department of Education (DfE) and is aimed to meet the requirements set out in Relationships Education, Relationships and Sex Education (RSE) and Health Education (July 2019).
Relationships, Sex Education and Health Education are taught as a statutory subject through the Life Skills lessons and are reinforced via RSE weekly morning Aspire2be sessions, as well as wider subject curriculums.
Through delivering RSE, we make a significant contribution to the academy’s legal duties to;
- prepare students for the opportunities, responsibilities and experiences of adult life;
- promote the spiritual, moral, social cultural mental and physical development of students.
We will be utilising various outside agencies to work alongside us in meeting the needs of our pupils. The provision will constantly be monitored and updated to ensure that it is age and maturity appropriate and will also take into consideration any pastoral concerns or contemporary issues that may be relevant to the academy.
Parental consultation and right to withdraw.
This curriculum has been open for parental and community consultation since September 2019. This process is still open and ongoing. The Department for Education (DfE, 2019a) is clear that we “recognise the importance of strong, constructive and open conversation with parents in the education of their children.” This will empower you to continue the conversations started in class at home (DfE, 2020).
You cannot withdraw your child from Health Education or the Relationships Education element of Relationships and Sex Education because it is important that all children receive this content, covering topics such as friendships and how to stay safe. If you do not want your child to take part in some or all of the Sex Education lessons delivered at secondary school level, you can ask that they are withdrawn.
We will consider this request and discuss it with you, and will grant this in all but exceptional circumstances, up until three school terms before your child turns 16. At this age, your child can choose to receive Sex Education if they would like to, and the academy should arrange for your child to receive this teaching unless there are exceptional circumstances.
The science curriculum in all maintained schools also includes content on human development, including reproduction, for which there is no right to withdraw.
If you would like to discuss the RSE curriculum in further detail, please email Amanda.@jacobrca.e-act.org.uk
RSE secondary schools guide fo parents