Introducing a new curriculum area
Revised guidance for Relationships and Sex Education (RSE) in schools in England is long overdue. The existing document was introduced in the year 2000, at a time before the equalisation of the age of consent for sexual relationships, the repeal of Section 28 of the Local Government Act, the introduction of the Equality Act (2010) or civil partnerships and equal marriage. The title of that guidance document refers to relationship in the singular (perhaps inferring that people only have one) and puts this after sex in the title, when we, along with many other researchers in the field, have campaigned that relationships should be the underpinning context for sex education, arguing that it is better titled the other way around. The new statutory guidance, to be implemented from September 2020, focusses on Relationships Education (RE) as mandatory in primary schools, with Sex Education optional, and Relationships and Sex Education as mandatory for secondary schools. It provides the opportunity for children to learn about relationships in many forms, with particular emphasis on five areas:1
- Families and people who care for me
- Caring friendships
- Respectful relationships
- Online relationships
- Being safe
The guidance stipulates that each school will develop its own policy, outlining how Relationships Education will be developed and delivered. This policy should:
- define Relationships Education
- set out subject content
- outline how it will be taught and by whom
- describe how it will be monitored and evaluated
- indicate why parents do not have a right to withdraw their child from the subject (although they retain the right to withdraw their child from Sex Education delivered outside the curriculum for science)
- identify a date for reviewing the policy
The guidance makes clear that teaching about relationships should be inclusive, reflecting the communities in which the children are growing up, being respectful of their backgrounds and family beliefs and also being sensitive about the range of families from which the children come:
Teaching about families requires sensitive and well-judged teaching based on knowledge of pupils and their circumstances. Families of many forms provide a nurturing environment for children. (Families can include for example, single parent families, LGBT parents, families headed by grandparents, adoptive parents, foster parents/carers amongst other structures.) Care needs to be taken to ensure that there is no stigmatisation of children based on their home circumstances and needs, to reflect sensitively that some children may have a different structure of support around them; e.g. looked after children or young carers.2
For some, this idea is controversial and there have been examples where teaching about same-sex parents, for example, has caused tensions within communities. However, the focus of the curriculum is on families and relationships, not on sex or sexual acts. Many, if not all, children are aware that there are many different kinds of families represented in their schools, local communities and even in the television programmes that they watch. This can include one- or two-parent families, children living with an aunt or a grandparent, children with a parent or carer living distant from them or working away from home for long periods, and families where remarriage means they have more than two parents. It is important to acknowledge this diversity, and not to confuse speaking about relationships with talk about sex. That said, we contend that Sex Education should be integrated with Relationships Education in order to support children’s development and well-being within the primary phase of education. To teach the requirements of the science curriculum about human development and growth without explaining why people’s bodies change during puberty and linking this to an understanding that emotions and the ways in which we relate to other people also change, is to give children a partial view which does them a disservice.
Finding a way through
One of the most significant challenges for 2020 is how to approach Relationships Education—and Sex Education where it is taught—from the perspective of what children need to know and what is developmentally appropriate. In our experience, teachers (including ourselves) are often not well equipped to teach RSE by their initial teacher training course. The reduction in school and Local Authority budgets seen in recent years has meant that some of the wider services, such as the school nurse or outside agencies, that may have supported this aspect of the curriculum in the past are no longer accessible to schools. This essentially leaves teachers to find their way around the demands of the new RE and RSE curriculum with limited support. Within this context are the challenges of including parents and carers, along with the wider school community, in supporting decisions that the school makes in relation to this potentially sensitive and often deeply personal statutory element of the curriculum.