Health and Wellbeing has an integral role within the Curriculum for Excellence. Provision of full and accurate information about relationships, sexual health and parenthood is a key priority to equip children and young people with the knowledge and skills with which they can make informed decisions and choices about all aspects of their health and wellbeing.
Research shows that in order for young people to be able to grow into healthy and responsible adults, able to assert their rights in relationships and to protect their sexual health, learning needs to start at the youngest age in an age appropriate way. This learning should be layered as they group up, in developmentally appropriate ways. This is most effective when learning at school is reinforced by parents and carers at home.
Children and young people should be encouraged to understand the importance of consent, dignity and respect for themselves and the views of others. They should be encouraged to recognise the risks, the physical, emotional and moral implications of their behaviours, and to accept the need for both partners to behave responsibly.
Learning experiences should encourage discussion and critical thinking about children and young people’s rights and to promote questioning of gender stereotypes and gender inequality. This will also help to challenge some of the negative gender norms that exist in society which place unnecessary pressure on children and young people. Use of gender neutral and non-judgemental language is good practice and is highly recommended to ensure that pupils always feel included as full members of the school community.
Practitioners, children and young people should feel comfortable raising issues in a safe, open and transparent environment that is considerate of their needs and background.
Vulnerable children and young people who have additional, diverse needs would benefit from extra support in terms of Relationships, Sexual Health and Parenthood education. Practitioners should take account of current personalised support plans to meet their needs. Additional support needs can arise for any reason. Children and young people with a disability must, as with all pupils, be included in Relationships, Sexual Health and Parenthood lessons in order to develop their knowledge and understanding of healthy, safe, respectful and loving relationships.
To explain more about the importance of Relationships, Sexual Health and Parenthood education and how it benefits children and young people a series of short video clips are available to view in the national resource for RSHP – you will find this under the Curricular Resources tab.
Early Protective Messages (EPM)
EPM is designed to deliver on Scottish Government policy/strategy on a range of healthy relationships and equalities issues. EPM aims to reinforce the following key messages:
Find out more about related training in the CPD Courses 
section of the app.
Gender Friendly Nursery Programme
The Gender Friendly Nursery (GFN) programme involves staff training on gender equality and equity, and reducing gender stereotypes. This includes links with a range of other issues, including gender based violence, mental health, education, and the gender pay gap. Staff will consider current practice, celebrate and understand the importance of the gender equality work they already do, and identify areas for further development, leading to GFN accreditation. Feedback from the training shows that the programme is inspiring new thinking leading to changes in practice.
Training is currently being delivered using a combination of pre-recorded and live sessions via Microsoft Teams and Zoom until a return to face to face training is possible. Further information can be found here
Young People’s Relationships
Children and young people have very easy access to and exposure to pornography often from upper primary school age. This distorts ideas and thoughts of what constitutes typical healthy sexual behaviour and plays out in real life experiences with the enacting of often harmful tropes learned through exposure to pornography. This includes widespread experience of “choking” behaviour.
Sexually aggressive and harassing behaviour is widespread and experienced especially by girls and young women in all parts of society especially in online spaces. This can range from groping, sexualised name calling, pressure to generate and share nudes to more extreme forms or coercive and abusive sexual behaviour.
Young People have crucial gaps in their knowledge relating to consent in intimate relationships and for many, even if they do understand this, they lack the language and confidence to put this into practice and assert their rights.
This context is occurring at a time when the important adults in children and young people’s lives including parents, carers and staff that work with young people in a range of settings, can be increasingly unsure of how, when and what to say in discussing relationships and sexual health with them. This uncertainty and lack of confidence in adults is now also being negatively affected by campaigns of deliberate misinformation designed to stoke such concerns generated by a range of extreme pressure groups.
This context places a greater need for factual information to be delivered in an age and stage appropriate way within schools as part of Relationships, Sexual Health and Parenthood (RSHP) education. You can access the resource via the Relationships and Sexual Health Curricular Resources tab below.
GGC - Education Health and Wellbeing
