RSE 

As you may be aware, The Department for Education (DFE) announced that from September 2020, all schools in England will be required to teach relationships and health education (RSE). In light of COVID 19 schools can delay teaching this until Summer 2021 at the latest.

The new requirements formalise expectations but don’t make significant changes to what we already teach our students at Whiston Worrygoose. Many of the topics required by the DFE were already taught as part of our Personal, Social and Health Education (PSHE) curriculum, as well as in other subject areas.

As part of relationships education pupils have to be taught:

• families and people who care for me
• caring friendships
• respectful relationships
• online relationships
• being safe

As part of health education pupils have to be taught:

• mental wellbeing
• internet safety and harms
• physical health and fitness
• healthy eating
• facts and risks associated with drugs, alcohol and tobacco
• health and prevention
• basic first aid
• changing adolescent body

At Secondary schools, sex education will also become mandatory however this is not the case with Primary schools. Primary schools can still also choose to teach sex education for example as part of Y7 transition but parents will retain the right to withdraw your child from this area of the curriculum.

We have reviewed our RSE policy and provision to ensure it is appropriate for our pupils based on their:

•  Age
• Physical and emotional maturity
• Religious and cultural backgrounds
• Special educational needs and/or disabilities

We asked for parent views before forming our RSE Policy, which applies for the academic year 2021/22 and to help us ensure that the curriculum is as robust as possible. Our  process and timeline was as follows:

 W.C 23rd November 2020

 We provided an initial introduction video to explain the existing scheme of work. This was made available on our school website. We also ensured that the scheme of work was available on the website to view. We requested a working group of parents to take part in initial drafting of our RSE policy.

W.C 30th November 2020

 The working group for parents met virtually with Mrs Hill to help us draft the RSE policy.  We also conducted an online survey to obtain parent views about the content and ideal delivery of the scheme.

W.C 14th December 2020

 We shared our draft policy with parents and encouraged parents to speak to each class teacher with any questions.

 We considered the views of the working group, responses to the online consultation, and feedback to class teachers so that our final RSE Policy could be published before the start of the Spring Term 2020/21.

The DFE has published a parent guide here:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/relationships-sex-and-health-education-guides-for-schools

The guide is available in English, Arabic, Somali and Urdu. It is also possible to request the guide in an accessible format by emailing alternative.formats@education.gov.uk

RSE Parent Consultation

 Thank you to all parents/carers who completed our consultation survey on the delivery of Relationships and Sex Education in school. A big thank you as well to the parents who joined me in the parents’ consultation meeting to discuss the policy in more depth. We really value your input and this has helped us to shape our curriculum offer moving forward in order to best meet the needs of the children in our school. The full RSE policy and curriculum overviews will be made available on the school website alongside the PSHE scheme of work.

 In response to the parent survey, 91% of parents felt that the school PSHE Curriculum meets the needs of their child. The vast majority of parents felt that the content was appropriate but a few parents commented that some of the content should appear later in the teaching sequence. In response to your feedback we have shifted some topics into later year groups. In particular the teaching content from year 4 on puberty now features in the year 6 teaching content.

 A third of parents said they would like support at home with how to discuss with your child about the relationships and sex education curriculum content. We intend to provide parent guides and some short videos by staff to explain the remaining content of the PSHE scheme for the rest of the school year. These will be made available at the start of the spring term.

 Prior to the teaching of the Year 6 RSE and sex education topics, parents will be invited into school for a meeting with the Head of School and class teacher to discuss the specific content. Parents will then be able to make an informed choice of whether they would like to withdraw their children from any of the non-statutory sex education content.

 We would also like to review our policy annually, rather than biannually. After the implementation this year we will again consult with parents regarding any additional amendments we feel are necessary.

 Thank you again for your contributions and your continued support.

Mrs V Hill.

Whiston Worrygoose J & I School RSE Policy

Leaflet for parents - Talking to your child about RSE