Relationships and Sex Education (RSE)

An important, statutory part of PSHE in all primary schools is Relationships Education. This focuses on teaching the fundamental building blocks and characteristics of positive relationships, with particular reference to friendships and family relationships. The Department for Education also recommends that primary schools deliver a sex education programme tailored to the age and the physical and emotional maturity of pupils (although this is not compulsory).

Curriculum Information and Resources

Relationships and Sex Education (RSE) is taught within the personal, social, health and economic (PSHE) education curriculum. Some biological aspects of RSE are taught within the science curriculum, and other aspects are sometimes included in religious education (RE). Within PSHE,  RSE is taught across EYFS, KS1 and KS2. We have worked with the PSHE Association to build an appropriate curriculum. The lesson resources we use are created by the NSPCC and Medway Council and are approved by the PSHE Association. The school has mapped out the content and vocabulary that will be taught in each year group - a copy of this curriculum map can be accessed below. Teachers deliver the agreed content (and do not deviate from this), in line with school policy. For information on your right to withdraw your child from the non-statutory elements of this curriculum, please see the information below (and within the RSE policy).

Relationships education focuses on teaching the fundamental building blocks and characteristics of positive relationships including:

• Families and people who care for me
• Caring friendships
• Respectful relationships
• Online relationships
• Being safe

These areas of learning are taught within the context of family life, taking care to ensure that there is no stigmatisation of children based on their home circumstances (families can include single parent families, LGBT parents, families headed by grandparents, adoptive parents, foster parents/carers and other structures), along with reflecting sensitively that some children may have a different structure of support around them (for example: looked after children or young carers).

For more information, please read our full RSE policy by following the link below.

Parent Access to Lesson Materials

Please see the curriculum map below for an outline of the RSE content taught in each year group at Parbold Douglas.

Parents are able to request copies of the lesson materials used in your child's lessons, including worksheets, presentations and other content. We will gladly share these materials as parents are a vital partner in the delivery of an excellent RSE curriculum to children.

To request copies of these materials, parents should contact the school office or email the Headteacher via head@pda.lancs.sch.uk. Copies of the resources will then be emailed to parents. We ask that any resources shared with parents are not published or shared more widely due to copyright reasons.

Right to Withdraw

Parents have the right to request that their child be withdrawn from some or all of the non-statutory sex education delivered as part of our RSE curriculum.

Requests for withdrawal should be put in writing and addressed to the Headteacher. These requests can be submitted via email to head@pda.lancs.sch.uk. A copy of the withdrawal request will be logged by the school. The Headteacher will then contact the parents.

Parents cannot withdraw their child from any part of Relationship Education, Health Education or from any statutory sex education that forms part of the National Curriculum for Science.  

Alternative work will be given to pupils who are withdrawn from non-statutory sex education.

If you would like to know more about which content is statutory and which is non-statutory, please contact the Headteacher.

Our school values in RSE

Our school values are woven through our RSE (Relationships and Sex Education) curriculum. There is a key focus on love. At the heart of our curriculum is the importance of loving, caring relationships, which allow for forgiveness and reparation of mistakes. We teach children to be appreciative of those around them, developing thankfulness for everyone we have a relationship with. Children will learn that building positive, healthy, forgiving relationships with others, leads to long lasting friendship.

Meeting the needs of our pupils in RSE

Within our RSE curriculum we highlight to the children the importance of communicating with confidence and rehearse this skill as we courage them to express thoughts and emotions. This ensures that children have the confidence to communicate in order to build loving relationships with others. This is also paramount to ensure the children have the confidence to speak out about their emotions when they are uncomfortable with something or wish to say no. Our RSE curriculum teaches the children about resilience in the context of relationships, as includes discussions about helping our pupils to cope with a difficulties within a relationship. Children explore how to resolve a dispute, while being taught to understand that disagreeing with someone doesn’t mean that they don’t love us or we don’t love them. As part of our RSE curriculum we teach children to understand that there are many different types of families and relationships to help them understand the diversity within family units.

To find out more about RSE, please contact our PSHE Leadership Team (Mrs Wainwright, Mrs Jonker and Mr Lawson).

Relationships and Sex Education (RSE) Policy Consultation

Every two years, our RSE Policy is reviewed in full and, as part of this process, the views of staff, governors and parents are taken into account.  

The most recent parent consultation took place in April/May 2023, following revisions to the RSE Policy in early 2023.

We are committed to working positively in partnership with parents to ensure that all aspects of our PSHE programme are effective and appropriate.