We define Relationships and Sex Education as the curriculum used to encompass many aspects of the Personal, Social, Health Education (PSHE) curriculum as well as contributing to promoting the spiritual, moral, cultural, mental and physical development of pupils. Our school policy on RSE is based on the Department for Education (DfE) Relationships Education, Relationships and Sex Education (RSE) and Health Education (2019).

The DfE provides the following definition in its guidance:

‘It is lifelong learning about physical, moral and emotional development. It is about the understanding of the importance…for family life, of stable and loving relationships, respect, love and care. It is also about the teaching of sex, sexuality and sexual health. It is not about the promotion of sexual orientation or sexual activity.’

The intent of our Relationships and Sex Education is to help and support young people through their physical, emotional and moral development. A successful programme, firmly embedded in PSHE, Safeguarding policies and our commitment to Mental Health and Well-being, will help young people learn to respect themselves and others and move with confidence from childhood, through adolescence into adulthood.

Our programme aims to provide the basis for an ongoing programme of RSE that begins in Reception and continues through to Year 6 that will assist children to:

• Develop positive values and a moral framework that will guide pupils’ decisions, judgements and behaviour as they move into adolescence and adulthood
• Understand the consequences of their actions and behave responsibly within all relationships
• Have the confidence and self-esteem to value themselves and others and to have respect for individual conscience and the skills to judge what kind of relationships they want
• Communicate effectively
• Avoid being exploited or exploiting others
• Avoid being pressurised into behaviours or situations they do not feel comfortable with
• Understand the processes of puberty, conception and birth
• Show respect for their own bodies and other people’s
• Recognise their emotions and express them effectively and appropriately
• Understand the importance of family life for all and, in particular in the development of a child,
• Recognise and respect that different people make different decisions about the relationships they choose to enter into.