Next week, every year group from Year 1 to Year 6 will cover the appropriate yearly objectives from our Relationships and Sex Education curriculum. Our school aims and values underpin the way in which we deliver a whole school approach to teaching the Relationships and Sex Education curriculum (RSE) for all our pupils, which includes sensitively responding to pastoral issues.

We aim to meet the needs of all our pupils and respond to the range of cultures and family diversity. Our aim is to provide an effective RSE programme which meets the needs of all our pupils; to provide opportunities for all pupils to understand themselves within the wider context of physical and emotional changes and to equip them with the skills and understanding to be confident within themselves.

We have certain ground rules to ensure the safety of the learning environment for relationships and sex education. These are:

• No one is forced to answer a question or participate in discussion.
• Only correct names for body parts will be used.
• Meanings of words will be explained in a factual way.
• Teachers will deal sensitively with what children say,  however, they cannot offer pupils complete confidentiality, for child protection reasons.
• Teachers who know their pupils well are ideally placed to provide sex and relationship education, therefore supply teachers will not deliver lessons.

Parents have a key role to play, in partnership with the school. In particular, they are important in:

• Maintaining the ethos and culture of the family
• Supporting children in coping with the changes of growing up
• Preparing children for the challenges of sexual maturity

Some parents find this a difficult subject to talk about with children, which is where school can help by providing a more ‘distanced’ or neutral approach, which can be followed up by closer discussion at home. Many children will want to come home and ask questions after the sessions in school. This is where you can most support them and reinforce their understanding.

This year we are using the CWP Sex Education resources which provide a range of activities, videos and discussion opportunities. We hope that you won’t, but parents do have the right to withdraw children from the sessions about sex and reproduction, overviews of the teaching programmes for each year group are included with this email and all the documents can be accessed in the ‘Documents’ section of the School App or in the appropriate year group section on the school website. If you would like to discuss things further, please contact your child’s class teacher who can discuss the content in more detail.