Following the release of draft guidance at the end of the last academic year, many teachers have been left uncertain about what to teach when it comes to Relationships, Sex, and Health Education (RSHE).
To provide some clarity, NASS reached out to Sex Education Forum, a charity that champions high-quality Relationships and Sex Education for all young people. In her blog below, RSE Training & Specialist Nicky Waring shares advice about what is the current guidance and offers practical tips for delivering RSHE to SEND learners. Her advice highlights how to engage learners, involve parents, and ensure that RSHE is inclusive and tailored to meet the unique needs of each learner.
Additionally, Sex Education Forum is offering a special discount for NASS member schools on their of upcoming training events:
- 22nd October: Inclusive RSE for learners with PMLD
- Autumn training (starting 7th November): Developing RSE Specialism in SEND schools
For further details, please visit: https://www.sexeducationforum.org.uk/training-and-consultancy/calendar
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At the Sex Education Forum, we’ve had lots of teachers asking us what they should be teaching following the release of draft guidance at the end of last academic year.
Good news! The existing 2019 statutory RSHE guidance is still in place. Schools can continue to provide the inclusive, high-quality RSHE they have been, particularly important for our learners with SEND, within that framework.
The 2019 guidance is clear that our SEND learners should be able to access the whole breadth of the curriculum. But how do we do this?
One of our top tips for paving the way to comprehensive, age and stage-appropriate RSHE is to open up those lines of communication with parents and carers. When communicating to parents about other areas of the curriculum is there an opportunity to include information about RSHE? Having regular contact with parents in a variety of ways about RSHE and how it relates to their child’s daily life, helps them understand the ‘how’ and ‘why’ of what we’re teaching and builds confidence. Talking with parents about their values and what they want for their child as an adult is a helpful starting point as it can help to demonstrate that we are working towards the same goals.
Knowing that parents are supportive of your aims and framing RSHE in terms of skills for adulthood can also help teachers feel more comfortable in delivering those topics which feel trickier. Identifying the most basic, fundamental skill our learners need, can be a really helpful shift to ensure that our learners are accessing all areas of the RSHE curriculum. For our most complex learners, this first step on the skills ladder might be as far as our learners progress and in itself that could be a life-enhancing goal, however, we keep offering the next step on the skills ladder. For our learners with PMLD, carrying out personal care provides many opportunities to teach RSE, from clearly and consistently modelling consent, privacy and respect; using the correct scientific names for body parts to talking about puberty changes - particularly effective if your learners are able to see their own bodies. Are all your staff consistently using these opportunities?
The statutory guidance on RSHE states that pupil views are important, but some schools are yet to explore pupil voice when it comes to RSE. Through the Sex Education Forum’s many interactions with schools, we have seen the difference that it makes when a student's views are sought about what they want to learn and how. Dialogue with both students and families is key to making RSE as relevant to the lives and goals of learners as possible, and it results in more engagement in lessons.
Top tips for engagement:
- Use student questions – gathered anonymously from RSE lessons - to inform your planning, or use our handy curriculum guide.
- Use short stories and scenarios to help students explore ideas without it feeling personal.
- Role-play is a great tool for bringing scenarios to life. To help learners feel safer, try demonstrating through role-playing with your staff team or student volunteers and ask the rest of your learners to give suggestions for what to do or say.
The main takeaway is to keep up the learner-centred approach that we know is alive in SEND settings and if you need support with your RSE, get in touch!
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Nicky Waring, RSE Trainer & Specialist, Sex Education Forum