Relationships Education

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What is Relationships Education?

Relationships Education (RE) aims to support our children as they grow up in an increasingly complex world, living their lives seamlessly on and offline. 

The subject puts in place the key building blocks of healthy, respectful relationships, focusing on family and friendships, in all contexts, including online. This sits alongside the essential understanding of how to be healthy. All of this content supports our wider work at Seal in helping pupils to foster well being and develop the resilience and character that we know are fundamental to pupils being happy and successful members of society. 

What do we teach children in Relationships Education? (Curriculum/Intent)

At Seal, we use the RE programme developed by Discovery Education. This is based on a spiral curriculum where six strands are revisited each year, developing and deepening the children’s knowledge over time. The six strands are:

  • Healthy and Happy Relationships

  • Similarities and Differences

  • Caring and Responsibilities

  • Family and Committed Relationships

  • Healthy Bodies, Healthy Minds

  • Coping with Change

The main issues dealt with in each year group are outlined below:

In year 1 pupils cover the following content across the year:

Healthy and happy friendships

  • Forming friendships and how kind or unkind behaviours impact other people.

Similarities and differences

  • Similarities and differences between people and how to respect and celebrate these.

Caring and responsibility

  • Identifying who our special people are and how they keep us safe.

Families and committed relationships

  • What a family is (including difference and diversity between families), and why families are important and special.

Healthy bodies, healthy minds

  • Our bodies and the amazing things they can do. Learning the correct names for different body parts.

Coping with change

  • Growing from young to old and how we have changed since we were born.

In year 2 pupils cover the following content across the year:

Healthy and happy friendships

  • Understanding what makes a happy friendship. Understanding personal boundaries and safe/unsafe situations.

Similarities and differences

  • Exploring different strengths and abilities. 

  • Understanding and challenging stereotypes.

Caring and responsibility

  • The different communities and groups we belong to and how we help and support one another through these.

Families and committed relationships

  • The different types of family members and how families vary.

Healthy bodies, healthy minds

  • Ways to stay healthy, including safe and unsafe use of household products and medicines.

Coping with change

  • Exploring how our bodies and needs change as we grow older. Aspirations and goal setting.

In year 3 pupils cover the following content across the year:

Healthy and happy friendships

  • Being a good friend and respecting personal space. 

  • Strategies for resilience.

Similarities and differences

  • Respecting and valuing differences. 

  • Shared values of communities.

Caring and responsibility

  • Our responsibilities and ways we can care and show respect for others.

Families and committed relationships

  • Exploring the importance of commitment in relationships and how families can change and alter over time, including through separation and loss.

Healthy bodies, healthy minds

  • Maintaining physical and mental wellbeing through healthy eating, sleep and keeping clean.

Coping with change

  • Coping with feelings around the changes in our lives.

In year 4/5 pupils cover the following content across two years:

Healthy and happy friendships

  • Solving friendship difficulties. 

  • How to act if someone invades your privacy or personal boundaries.

  • Identity and peer pressure in real life and online. 

  • Positive emotional health and wellbeing.

Similarities and differences

  • Identity and diversity. 

  • Seeing different perspectives and not making judgements based on appearance.

  • Celebrating strengths, setting goals and keeping ourselves safe online.

Caring and responsibility

  • Rights and responsibilities within families and wider society, including the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

  • How our care needs change and the effects of loneliness and isolation. 

  • Ways in which we can show care in the community. 

Families and committed relationships

  • The range of relationships we experience in our everyday lives. 

  • How to identify each relationship and understand the differences between the types of relationships we encounter.

  • The characteristics of healthy, positive and committed relationships, and how these develop as people grow older.

 Healthy bodies, healthy minds

  • Influences on our health and wellbeing, including friends, family and media, and awareness of how these can affect personal choices.

  • Our unique bodies and self-acceptance – valuing our bodies and minds; lifestyle habits (including alcohol, tobacco and drugs) and their effects on wellbeing.

  • Coping with change

  • How puberty changes can affect our emotions and feelings and ways to manage this; questions about puberty and change, including menstruation. N.B. This Y5 curriculum will not be taught to Year 4 pupils

In year 6 pupils cover the following content across the year:

Healthy and happy friendships

  • How relationships evolve as we grow, and how to cope with a wider range of emotions.

Similarities and differences

  • Identity and behaviour online and offline. 

  • Reflecting on how people feel when they don’t ‘fit in’.

Caring and responsibility

  • How we can take more responsibility for self-care and who cares for us as we grow older, including at secondary school.

Families and committed relationships

  • Sex education: adult relationships and human reproduction, including different ways to start a family. 

Healthy bodies, healthy minds

  • Being the best me: ongoing self-care of bodies and minds, including ways to prevent and manage mental ill-health.

Coping with change

  • Transitions (including to secondary school) and ways to manage the increasing responsibilities and emotional effects of life changes.

You can see an overview of the content for all year groups here:

Content Overview

How do we teach Relationships Education? (Pedagogy/Implementation)

Our teaching of Relationship Education centres on high quality class discussions relating to our learning resources, such as videos, presentations or photographs. In line with our Relationship Education policy, teachers will answer any questions from pupils in an age-appropriate and factual way, without personal bias or judgement. Questions will be answered in one of the following ways: by providing an answer to the whole class; by giving an individual answer to a pupil, or, on rare occasions, by contacting parents if we feel the question would be better handled in the home setting.

Any questions that give rise to concerns of a safeguarding nature will be handled in line with our published safeguarding policy which can be viewed in the website policy area.

Why do we teach Relationships Education in this way? (Rationale)

At Seal we have chosen this curriculum and approach to teaching because:

1. Our RE curriculum ensures we fully meet the requirements of the National Curriculum

2. Our RE curriculum has a spiral nature which revisits and builds on previous learning

3. Our RE curriculum is built around classroom discussions which build on our children’s natural interest in talking about important topics in their lives. The opportunity to ask their teacher questions also allows us to personalise the learning to the needs of classes or individuals.

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