RSE Consultation

This consultation begins on Friday 21st May 2021 and will close on Friday 4th June 2021.

Dear Parents/Carers of children in KS1 & KS2

As a part of your child’s educational experience at Sylvester Primary Academy, we aim to promote personal wellbeing and development through a comprehensive taught programme of Personal, Social, Health and Economic (PSHE) education that gives children and young people the knowledge, understanding, attitudes, and practical skills to live healthy, safe, productive, and fulfilled lives, both now and in the future.

As you may already be aware, the Department for Education has announced changes to relationships and sex education following nationwide consultation. These changes will come into effect from September 2021 and all schools will be required to comply with the updated requirements.

The statutory guidance can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/relationships-education-relationships-and-sex-education-rse-and-health-education

The new guidance focuses on healthy relationships and keeping children safe in the modern world. It also covers a wide range of topics relating to physical and mental health, wellbeing, safeguarding and healthy relationships.

Learning about the emotional, social, and physical aspects of growing up will give children and young people the information, skills, and positive values to have safe, fulfilling relationships and help them take responsibility for their own well-being.

Consequently, from September 2021, Relationships, along with Health Education, will be statutory, and form part of the National Curriculum. For Secondary schools Sex Education will also become statutory. However, the DfE continue to recommend that all primary schools should have a sex education programme tailored to the age and the physical and emotional maturity of the pupils.

Where schools provide sex education at key stages 1 and 2, parents will have the right to withdraw their child from sex education but not from statutory Relationships Education, Health Education or what is taught in the Science National curriculum.

This means that we have been reviewing our RSE (Relationship and Sex Education) curriculum and policy so we can be sure our RSE provision is appropriate for our pupils based on their:

• Age

• Physical and emotional maturity

• Religious and cultural backgrounds

• Special educational needs and disabilities

Whilst I am sure that there will be differences of opinion about this, we hope that consulting with you will help to inform our schools’ decisions on when and how certain content is covered and enable us to reach a consensus. Consequently, as part of our curriculum review, we would appreciate your views on our draft policy for Relationships and Sex Education (RSE).

What is taught, and how, is ultimately a decision for the school and consultation does not provide a parental veto on curriculum content as schools are legally required to teach the National Curriculum. The right to withdraw children from some lessons is explained within the policy.

As a school community, we are currently in unprecedented times which makes it a little more challenging to consult with you, as a result, we have put together a Microsoft Forms questionnaire that will help us form a view of parental opinion on our draft proposed policy for Relationships, Sex and Health Education.

To help you understand the curriculum requirements, our proposed Policy for Relationships, Sex and Health Education can be found via the hyperlink below.

Proposed Policy

Opt out forms can be accessed through the following hyperlink - here

Link to consultation questionnaire - https://forms.office.com/r/X6zvC8nnU0

Your views are very important to us and we will respond to you on the outcome of this process later this term. Once we have considered all the feedback, the finalised Relationships and Sex Education Policy will be uploaded to the school’s website which will also set out the proposed curriculum.

I hope this information goes some way to answer any questions you may have. If you have any queries or concerns regarding the consultation process, please do not hesitate to contact the school.

Thank you for your continued support