Relationships Education

Relationships and Health Education Curriculum Statement

We teach Relationships and Health Education (RHE) so that our children grow in love, understanding and respect for themselves and others, learning to live out the values of the Gospel as children of God.

Intent

At St Mary’s, our mission “Living and learning, inspired by our faith” places Christ at the centre of everything we do. Through our Relationships and Health Education (RHE) curriculum, we help children to understand that they are uniquely created and loved by God. RHE supports the spiritual, moral, social and emotional development of our pupils, enabling them to form positive, healthy relationships with themselves and others that are rooted in respect, dignity and love.

Our RHE curriculum aims to nurture confident, compassionate and self-aware children who recognise their God-given worth and the dignity of every person. We want all pupils to develop the knowledge, skills and moral understanding to make wise, informed choices as they grow. We celebrate diversity within our curriculum, ensuring that every child feels represented and valued within our inclusive Catholic community.

Our curriculum follows the Ten Ten “Life to the Full” programme, rooted in Catholic teaching and fulfilling statutory guidance for Relationships and Health Education. It is structured around three core themes:

            •          Created and Loved by God – self-worth, physical health and emotional well-being

            •          Created to Love Others – friendship, family, forgiveness and respect

            •          Created to Live in Community – responsibility, justice and service to others

Our intent is for every child to leave St Mary’s knowing that they are loved, capable of love, and called to live life to the full.

Implementation

Our RHE curriculum follows a spiral model, revisiting and deepening understanding as pupils progress through four learning stages:

Early Years Foundation Stage

Children learn that they are created and loved by God. Through Personal, Social and Emotional Development, children learn about feelings, friendships, family, kindness and keeping safe.

Key Stage One

Pupils develop understanding of self-respect, kindness, similarities and differences, and personal boundaries. Children are taught the correct scientific names for body parts as part of safeguarding.

Lower Key Stage Two

Pupils learn about physical and emotional changes during puberty, healthy friendships, personal boundaries and personal safety.

Upper Key Stage Two

Children deepen their understanding of relationships, marriage, and family life. Teaching includes reproduction (Making Babies Part 2), online safety (Seeing Stuff Online), FGM awareness and protected characteristics, all delivered sensitively and within Catholic teaching.

Every class at St Mary’s has weekly timetabled PSHE/RHE, ensuring consistent and progressive delivery across the school.

Teachers use the Ten Ten Life to the Full programme as the foundation of our curriculum. The scheme can be accessed via: https://www.tentenresources.co.uk/login/

Teachers adapt Ten Ten resources to meet the needs of individual classes and pupils. This includes:

            •          adapting vocabulary and key words

            •          scaffolding or extending learning

            •          personalising learning to reflect pupil context and experience

            •          ensuring lessons remain inclusive and accessible

Our curriculum is built around clearly identified sticky knowledge — the key understanding we want pupils to retain long term.

This begins in EYFS where children learn they are unique, valued and loved. As pupils progress, sticky knowledge is revisited and deepened, including:

            •          self-worth and dignity

            •          healthy relationships and boundaries

            •          physical and emotional development

            •          personal safety and safeguarding

            •          respect for diversity and human dignity

This ensures pupils know more, remember more and apply more as they move through the school.

Language development is central to RHE. We prioritise pupils developing fluency in key vocabulary so they can communicate confidently and safely, using their developing oracy skills.

Children are explicitly taught vocabulary linked to:

            •          emotions and feelings

            •          relationships

            •          correct scientific body terminology

            •          safeguarding and safety

Teachers model and reinforce vocabulary through discussion, reflection and oracy opportunities. This supports safeguarding by ensuring pupils have the language to describe concerns and seek help.

Parents are the first educators of their children. Every two years, we hold a dedicated Parent Consultation Evening to share curriculum content, explain key decisions and gather feedback.

We have arranged for all parents and carers to access the Ten Ten Parent Portal, where they can:

            •          view planned curriculum content

            •          preview videos and lesson summaries

            •          access prayers and home discussion activities

This allows families to engage with teaching and deepen learning and faith experiences at home.

RHE is enriched through assemblies, themed weeks (Anti-Bullying, Online Safety, Mental Health Awareness), RE links, prayer, reflection and music through Ten Ten and One Life Music.

Impact

Through RHE at St Mary’s, children:

            •          understand themselves as children of God

            •          form healthy, respectful relationships

            •          communicate using appropriate vocabulary

            •          know how to stay safe online and offline

            •          show empathy and respect for diversity

            •          develop confidence, integrity and responsibility

Teachers assess understanding through discussion, reflection and unit review activities. Pupils demonstrate impact through their ability to recall sticky knowledge and use key vocabulary confidently.

Impact is monitored through pupil voice, learning walks, teacher reflection and parental feedback. Our biennial consultation ensures our curriculum remains faithful to Catholic teaching and responsive to pupil need.

At the heart of our RHE curriculum is the belief that each child is loved, capable of love, and called to live life to the full.

Relationships Education (RSE) has been compulsory in all primary schools since September 2020. It is important that all children receive this content, covering topics such as friendships and how to stay safe. The Relationships Element to RSE is statutory, however, parents have the right to request that their child be withdrawn from the Sex Education content.

The delivery of RSE is nothing new to St Mary’s Primary School and it is a subject that we strive to continuously develop further.

At St Mary’s, our RSE curriculum enables our children to become healthy, happy, independent and responsible members of society. Our curriculum aims to help children develop personally, socially and spiritually, as loving witnesses to their Christian faith. It is our intention that when children leave St Mary’s, they will do so with the knowledge and skills to be able to play an active, positive and successful role in today’s diverse society and as global citizens.

In an everchanging world, we provide children with the tools they need to manage situations effectively and responsibly, developing the confidence to ask for help when needed. Learning how to deal with these factors appropriately ensures our children develop good mental health and wellbeing strategies.

Teachings of rights, responsibilities, social justice and our British Values are threaded throughout the curriculum. Children learn what it means to be a member of a diverse society and understand how to participate within an inclusive school community.

Our children are encouraged to develop their sense of self-worth by playing a positive role in contributing to school life and the wider community. Children learn the principles of Catholic Social Teaching and ways in which they can spread God’s love in their community.

Our curriculum helps to prepare children for the opportunities, responsibilities and experiences of later life. Our RSE curriculum ensures our children learn to know how to be safe, develop healthy and positive relationships both now and in the future.

TenTen – Life to the Full

As a Catholic school, our mission is to support the spiritual, moral, social and cultural development of all of our pupils, rooted in the wisdom and teaching of the Church. The education of children in human sexuality is an important, precious and privileged responsibility. The Church teaches us that this is very much a partnership with parents, in which parents are the ‘first educators’ of their children on these matters and ultimately, you confer on us the right to co-educate your children with you.

As a School, as part of your child’s RSE teaching, we will be using the ‘Life to the Full’ programme which is based on the structure of ‘A Model Catholic RSE Curriculum’ by the Catholic Education Service. This model curriculum was highlighted as a work of good practice by the Department of Education so we therefore have confidence that the programme will be fit for purpose in supporting the growth and development of your child/children.

Life to the Full is much more than a series of lessons, it is an entire platform of creative resources that will engage, inform and inspire our children and, indeed, you as parents. This includes interactive video content, story-based activities, employing a wide range of teaching tools, original worship music and an accompanying programme of classroom prayers.

RSE is taught through core subjects within school: PSHE, RE and Science from EYFS through to Year 6.  The aim of RSE in Primary Schools are:

• To give children the information they need to help them develop healthy, nurturing relationships of all kinds, not just intimate relationships.
• To enable them to know what a healthy relationship looks like and what makes a good friend, a good colleague and a successful marriage or other type of committed relationship.
• To teach what acceptable and unacceptable behaviours are in relationships.
• For Pupils to understand the positive effects that good relationships have on their mental wellbeing, identify when relationships are not right and understand how such situations can be managed.

The core themes for each year group are:

• Families and people who care for me
• Caring friendships
• Respectful relationships
• Online relationships
• Being Safe – This includes the concept of personal privacy

All teaching RSE will take in a safe learning environment and be underpinned by our school ethos and values. A variety of opportunities will be provided for pupils to ask questions to further their understanding and to find out more about what affects them personally. The TenTen RSE scheme of learning will be taught weekly in every class in a dedicated session.

The Ten Ten scheme is Split into three modules/themes:

• Created and Loved by God
• Created to Love Others
• Created to Live in Community

We have arranged for all parents and carers to be able to access the parent portal and see the planned content, where you can engage with the teaching carried out in school and where you can deepen the experience with your children

The log in details for TenTen’s parent portal are: 

Username: StMarysW42DF

Password: rainbow

This is available for you to access at any time.

Please see the booklet that will help to give you an overview of the structure and content of the programme.

The programme adopts a spiral curriculum approach so that as a child goes through the programme year-after-year, the learning will develop and grow, with each stage building on the last.

Parent Feedback following Consult – 06.10.23

On Friday 6th October 2023, Miss Scannell and Miss Keane led a Relationship Education consult to parents which referred to the scheme we’re using at St Mary’s (TenTen, Life to the Full) and the content which will be covered.