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. This is why Relationships Education is compulsory in all primary schools.

Our Relationships, Sex and Health Education learning and development is vital in ensuring the children: understand how to be a healthy individual (with regard to mental wellbeing and physical health); understand quality and fulfilling friendships, families and relationships; have an understanding of the positives of both the offline world and the online world we live in. We aim for all of the children to understand how to remain positive, safe and forward-thinking both now through their school journey and to set these foundations for their future lives. 

An important part of the Jigsaw PSHE programme is delivered through the 'Relationships' and 'Changing Me' puzzle pieces which are covered in the summer term. 

There are four main aims of teaching RSE:

• To enable children to understand and respect their bodies

• To help children develop positive and healthy relationships appropriate to their age and development

• To support children to have positive self-esteem and body image

• To empower them to be safe and safeguarded.

Each year group will be taught appropriate to their age and developmental stage. At no point will a child be taught something that is inappropriate; and if a question from a child arises and the teacher feels it would be inappropriate to answer, (for example, because of its mature or explicit nature), this information with be shared with you by your child’s class teacher. The question will not be answered to the child or class if it is outside the remit of that year group’s programme.

• Foundation Stage - Growing up: how we have changed since we were babies

• Year 1 - Boys’ and girls’ bodies; naming body parts

• Year 2 - Boys’ and girls’ bodies; body parts and respecting privacy (which parts of the body are private and why this is)

• Year 3 - How babies grow and how boys’ and girls’ bodies change as they grow older

• Year 4 - Internal and external reproductive body parts, body changes in girls and menstruation

• Year 5 - Puberty for boys and girls, and conception

• Year 6 - Puberty for boys and girls and understanding conception to birth of a baby

When creating the RSHE Curriculum, parents and carers were  invited to engage in a consultation where the policy, curriculum content and teaching resources were shared.  As well as being taught discretely, our RSHE curriculum is interwoven into our science, computing and physical education (through REAL PE) curricula.