Delivery of relationships, sexual health and parenthood education in Scottish schools: draft guidance

4. Summary of key learning points

4.1. RSHP education is intended to support all children and young people to build positive relations as they grow older. It encourages all practitioners and relevant professionals to present facts in an objective, balanced and sensitive manner within the framework of curricular values and an awareness of Scots Law. RSHP education supports all children and young people to explore the values of strong, loving relationships and recognises the diversity of families in Scotland.

4.2. Building the Curriculum 5 positions inclusivity at the heart of Scotland’s Curriculum for Excellence. It states “the curriculum must be a stimulus for personal achievement and must, through broadening of experience, be an encouragement towards informed and responsible citizenship.”. It is therefore relevant to outline how this is promoted and embedded within RSHP education.

Children and young people who require additional support

4.3. All children and young people, including those who require additional support, should co‑design the RSHP education they receive, where appropriate. Every pupil, including those who require additional support, will have differing needs and teachers/practitioners will need to effectively differentiate resources and approaches to suit individual learning needs. RSHP education content for learners who require additional support should be considered as a similar curricular entitlement for all children and young people.

4.4. There are some misconceptions that children and young people who require additional support are not, or will not, be sexually active. As with all children and young people, those who require additional support, including those with a learning disability, must be included in RSHP lessons so they have the same opportunity to develop their knowledge and understanding of healthy, safe, respectful and loving relationships^[24]. Some children and young people who require additional support are at a greater risk of being drawn into perpetration of harmful sexual behaviours, and relevant and meaningful RSHP education can support them to avoid those particular behaviours.

4.5. Each individual is unique, and to ensure effective practice in the delivery of RSHP education, teachers/practitioners will need to be creative in finding ways to adapt the curriculum to meet the individual learners’ educational needs, ensuring they receive an age appropriate education in line with their peers.

4.6. When supporting learners who require complex additional support to access their RSHP education, it is important for practitioners to take account of the additional physical, communicative, sensory and cognitive barriers to learning which learners may experience. For example, some learners may have limited or no verbal language. Practitioners will need to employ a range of strategies to support and enable understanding and communication such as use of on‑body and/or manual signing, sensory cues, objects of reference, song signifiers and visual supports such as photographs and symbols to enable learners to understand and respond.

Consent and Healthy Relationships

4.7. The thematic inspection of HWB/PSE carried out by Education Scotland^[25] reported that improvement was required across all education sectors to ensure an appropriate focus on the issue of sexual consent. Allied with the Equally Safe strategy^[26], the aim is to work collaboratively with key partners to support development of safe and healthy relationships that help prevent and eradicate all forms of violence against women and girls. This is supported in part by the Key Messages for Young People on Healthy Relationships and Consent^[27], a resource for professionals which aims to help provide consistent messaging to young people to support their learning of healthy relationships, giving them more confidence to speak out and challenge unacceptable behaviour using a bystander approach^[28].

4.8. All children and young people have a right to learn about their growing bodies, relationships (including online relationships), sexuality, sexual health and parenthood. This must be done in ways that are appropriate to their age and stage of development to ensure children and young people’s knowledge and understanding of healthy relationships and consent progresses as they navigate through the levels of the curriculum. Children and young people who receive learning and teaching about these issues are more likely to delay the onset of sexual activity and experience positive outcomes, such as safer, enjoyable, fulfilling, and respectful sex, when they do enter into sexual relationships^[29], whether in person or online.

4.9. To assist teachers/practitioners with lessons, widely available teaching resources that contain lesson plans on relationships^[30] and friendships^[31] can be utilised. Some of these resource also collate and map lesson plans across all levels of Curriculum for Excellence to help exemplify progression in learning, from an early age to Senior Phase. Information and advice that can be sent home to parents and carers to inform them of proposed lessons is also available. This can support them to follow up and reinforce learning at home.

Faith and Belief

4.10. RSHP education should be inclusive of all faiths and beliefs. In embedding a rights‑based approach, schools should provide children and young people with an opportunity to express and share their beliefs and values as well as their right to identify and express their own educational needs in RSHP education. In preparing programmes, it is good practice for schools to consult with parents and carers, as well as children and young people. Practitioners should use their professional judgement to ensure they respond respectfully to their views as well as their beliefs and values, to use the opportunity of inclusivity to positively support their learning activity. This ensures RSHP education reflects the diverse experience and needs of all children and young people in the school or educational setting, such as youth work settings.

4.11. It is further recognised that religious authorities with a role in education provide additional and complementary guidance on RSHP education for denominational schools.

Inclusivity

4.12. Through effective learning and teaching, children and young people develop their skills in using inclusive language when referring to or addressing individuals. This will allow them to discover and express their own identity and will support the potential to tackle gender stereotypes, ultimately improving gender equality in and outside the classroom. This will also help to set a positive ethos both in the classroom and wider school, reducing potential for racism, sexism and homophobia as well as other forms of discrimination.

LGBT Inclusive Education

4.13. Addressing diversity during planning, delivery and evaluation of RSHP education, with regard for equalities characteristics, can support schools in working towards meeting their duties under the Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED). This includes matters related to sexual orientation and gender reassignment, in addition to sex, race, disability, religion or belief, among other characteristics. RSHP educational content should also reflect healthy relationships within diverse sexual and gender identities, and family types. RSHP education must acknowledge hate crime, discrimination and bullying and harassment in Scotland.

4.14. The thematic outcomes related to LGBT inclusion, awareness, and equalities in RSHP education are contained in the LGBTI Inclusive Education Working Group’s report^[32]. Further information can also be found in the Quality Indicators of How Good is Our School 4 (HGIOS4)^[33], particularly QI 3.1, as well as Education Scotland's National Improvement Hub^[34].

Understanding Variations in Sex Characteristics (VSC) sometimes referred to as or Differences in Sex Development (DSD) or Intersex

4.15. A focus group of individuals with variations, not linked to the development of this guidance, discussed their school experiences and were clear they wanted to be treated like everyone else but not as a ‘special’ topic, just acknowledged. They did not want teachers to generalise – everyone is a unique individual, not everyone will menstruate or be able to have their own biological children and all bodies are different. This is reflected in the recognition of a need for an inclusive whole school approach.