Relationships, Sex and Health Education (RSHE) at

St. Monica's Catholic Primary School

'Today’s children and young people are growing up in an increasingly complex world and living their lives seamlessly on and offline. This presents many positive and exciting opportunities, but also challenges and risks. In this environment, children and young people need to know how to be safe and healthy, and how to manage their academic, personal and social lives in a positive way.'

Department of Education

Intent

We understand and appreciate that our children are growing up in an ever-changing and increasingly complex world and here at St. Monica's Catholic Primary School we believe that along with Parents as the first educators we need to ensure that the children are prepared for the wider world by equipping them with the tools that they will need in order to be safe and healthy, to be able to build positive relationships and to understand how to manage their personal and social lives in a meaningful way. We are tasked with educating young people and children about healthy loving relationships. We understand that any teaching about love and sexual relationships in a Catholic school must be rooted in the Catholic Church’s teaching about what it is to be truly human in Christ, what it means to live well in relationship with others and be presented within a positive framework of Christian virtue. For this reason, Catholic schools are encouraged to speak about Relationships, Sex and Health Education (RSHE) rather than Sex and Relationships Education (SRE), since this emphasises the importance of healthy relationships to human wellbeing, as the core learning within an RSHE curriculum. 

‘We are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution. Each of us is the result of a thought of God.’

Benedict XVI

We have worked hard to ensure that RSHE is an embedded part of our broad and balanced curriculum along with linking closely with safeguarding, Religious Education, SMSC and British Values. Our intent through our delivery of RSHE is to ensure that our children understand that they are made in the image and likeness of God, through this understanding they will be at ease with themselves and deepen their self-knowledge of how to grow and flourish healthily and holistically towards developing successful relationships. Our RSHE curriculum promotes strong links and connections with Catholic teaching and gospel values, and we have sought to ensure that this is accessible to all. We want our children to become happy, healthy and responsible members of society who understand the necessary components to develop healthy and successful relationships within their own lives. They are actively encouraged to develop a positive sense of self-esteem and to have a healthy respect and love for their own bodies and minds.

Implementation

Here at St Monica’s Catholic Primary School, we implement the content of the Relationships, Sex and Health Education set out by the Department for Education in a broad and balanced curriculum. The teaching of Relationships, Sex and Health Education is built upon various elements of our curriculum delivered through PSHE (Jigsaw), Science, Computing, the Come and See Programme for Religious Education and RSE ('A Journey in Love' as recommended by the Archdiocese of Liverpool). As a Catholic school our programme of religious study (Come and See) features heavily in our Relationships, Sex and Health Education mapping as our approach is rooted in the Catholic Church's teaching of the human person and how love is the central basis of relationships.

‘There is a need for a positive and prudent sex education to be imparted to children and adolescences as they grow older.’ 

Francis II

We are legally required to teach those aspects of RSHE which are statutory parts of National Curriculum Science. We understand that RSHE is sensitive to the different needs of the individual pupils. For this reason, we have chosen to use the RSHE programme ‘A Journey in Love’. This is an Archdiocese recommended resource that has been compiled specifically to present a Catholic, age-appropriate vision. This programme is intended to support teachers to deliver a comprehensive understanding of human relationships.

Impact 

Our impact of teaching Relationships, Sex and Health Education at St Monica’s is that all pupils will leave us with the knowledge and understanding that their body was made in God’s likeness and therefore they have a responsibility to take care of it in the best way that they can. They will appreciate that others around them were also created in God’s image, and they therefore have a collective responsibility for the health and wellbeing of those in their community. We want pupils to take this ethos through their secondary education and into their adult lives.

Relationships, Sex and Health Education (RSHE) Parental Guide 

Parental Consultation