Relationships and Sex Education Policy

1.   Statement
2.   Aim
3.   Related policies, legislation and guidance
4.   Roles and responsibilities
5.   Content accessibility
6.   Right to withdraw and opt in
7.   RSE and HE at Ashbourne
8.   Course delivery
9.   Training
10. Monitoring and evaluation
11. Policy review

Appendix A: RSE and HE Curriculum

1. Statement
Relationships and Sex Education and Health Education at Ashbourne provides students with well-balanced, factual information to help them better understand themselves and others, stay safe and to develop the necessary skills to recognise and nurture healthy relationships of all kinds.

In line with current RSE guidance, the College:

• teaches legal facts about biological sex and gender reassignment, whilst remaining sensitive to gender questioning students
• uses proper anatomical terminology
• addresses vaping addiction and harm
• makes students aware of criminal responsibility under the Online Safety Act
• explores how students under 16 years old may take their own health decisions, based on ‘Gillick’ competences
• examines potential harms of misinformation, disinformation and conspiracy theories

2. Aim
The aim of this policy is to set out how Relationships and Sex Education (RSE) is taught at the College, in line with statutory requirements.

(Back to menu)

3. Related policies, legislation and guidance
3.1 Policies

• Anti-bullying Policy
• British Values Policy
• Child Protection and Safeguarding Policy
• Child-on-Child/Peer-on-Peer Abuse Policy
• e-Safety Policy
• Equal Opportunities Policy

3.2 Legislation and guidance
This policy has been developed in accordance with relevant government legislation and guidance including Keeping Children Safe in Education, Working Together to Safeguard Children, Relationships Education, Relationships and Sex Education and Health Education Regulations, Independent Schools Standards and the Equality Act 2010.

Full list of legislation and guidance.

4. Roles and responsibilities
The Proprietor, who is also the Principal, has overall responsibility, with regard to this policy, to ensure that:

• The instruction of RSE is properly planned, regularly monitored, and reviewed and revised at least once every year;
• Students make educational progress. Students are taught how to stay safe and protect themselves, including online;
• Parents are consulted and properly informed about the RSE content and their rights;
• The RSE programme is properly resourced.

The Designated Safeguarding Lead (DSL) is responsible for the day-to-day management of RSE at the College, which includes overseeing the development, monitoring, evaluation and review.

(Back to menu)

5. Content accessibility
Parents are consulted about and made aware of content to be covered from the RSE curriculum through regular webinar updates, where questions are welcome, and notifications within half termly reports.

Students are notified ahead of lessons regarding upcoming content that may prove challenging. Key topics may also be highlighted in half termly webinars to ensure all students, including those with SEND, are clear and prepared for upcoming lessons.

(Back to menu)

6. Right to withdraw and opt back in
Parents and guardians of students under 16 years have the right to request that their child be withdrawn from some or all of sex education delivered as part of statutory RSE; relationship education is compulsory. Those who request to withdraw students from sex education are encouraged to discuss their concerns but are not obliged. Requests for withdrawal should be put in writing to the DSL. The College will provide appropriate replacement education for these students not taking part in sex education.

Students who are under 16 years old and in their final year of GCSE do have the right themselves to opt back in to RSE where they have previously been withdrawn.

Parents and guardians should be aware that the National Curriculum for Science covers material on external body parts and, growth, including puberty and reproduction in plants and animals.

(Back to menu)

7. Relationships and Sex Education and Health Education at Ashbourne
7.1 Aims
Ashbourne promotes and encourages the development of characteristics that generally underpin good relationships, such as belief in achievable goals, perseverance, respect, honesty and integrity, courage, humility, kindness and generosity, trustworthiness, sense of justice and self-respect and self-worth.

Relationships and Sex Education and Health Education relates to the emotional, social, cultural and physical development of students and includes learning about relationships, sexual health, sexuality, healthy lifestyles, diversity and identity.

Health education is non-compulsory for independent schools but is nonetheless covered in the College’s PSHEE and Personal Tutor programmes.

The RSE topic areas covered include:

• Families
• Respectful relationships
• Online safety and awareness
• Being safe
• Intimate and sexual relationships, including sexual health
• Relationships, sex and the law.

The College does not promote sexual experimentation but emphasises that nurturing positive relationships is possible with or without sex. For further information about the RSE curriculum please refer to Appendix A.

7.2 Confidentiality
Ashbourne provides a safe environment in which students can discuss and explore ideas and values relating to RSE. Students must be aware, however, that certain information they disclose during these sessions which raises safeguarding concerns, such as possible abuse, cannot be held confidential and therefore may be shared with the Designated Safeguarding Lead, or other relevant staff, for their own or others’ protection. Ashbourne is committed to safeguarding the welfare of all of its students.

7.3 Appropriate content and the law
The College will endeavour to ensure that material is balanced, sensitive and appropriate, including for the age group, for all students, with particular regard to protected characteristics and the Equality Act 2010, and takes into account and teaches aspects of the law relevant to RSE. It is important to clarify that the law is in place to protect from abuse rather than criminalise.

(Back to menu)

8. Course delivery
Ashbourne’s Personal Tutors (Year 12) and the DSL (Year 11) are responsible for developing schemes of work for the teaching of RSE, in consultation with the DSL, and for its delivery.

8.1 Ashbourne delivery
Year 12 students are taught RSE during timetabled personal tutor periods and Year 11 students are taught RSE as part of a wider PSHEE programme delivered in timetabled lessons.

RSE teachers are expected to deliver content in a non-judgemental, factual way that allows scope for students to ask questions, whether openly or anonymously. Students should be made aware that there are not always answers to questions and that teachers may be unable to answer some questions; teachers should endeavour to follow up these questions so that students do not seek answers that may be inaccurate online or elsewhere.

8.2 External agencies
External agencies invited by the College to contribute to the delivery of RSE programme will be vetted using the required safeguarding procedures set out in the College’s Safer Recruitment of Staff Policy, and material will be discussed in advance with the DSL.

(Back to menu)

9. Training
Ashbourne is committed to facilitating and supporting ongoing education and training of staff in all areas relating to student welfare.

10. Monitoring and evaluation
The DSL is responsible for overseeing the development, monitoring, evaluation and reviewing of the content for RSE. The DSL works in consultation with key members of staff who contribute to and deliver the course to review the programme before the beginning of the academic year and monitor during the course.

11. Policy review
This policy is reviewed annually by the DSL in conjunction with other senior members of staff and shared with students and parents via webinars to provide an opportunity for feedback.

(Back to menu)

Appendix A: RSE and HE Curriculum – what students should know by the end of the course.

The College aims to deliver a holistic and robust RSE curriculum, which ties together with other related areas such as online safety, safeguarding and student wellbeing. Throughout the course, the College will adhere to the following:

RSE should be taught in a considered ‘safe’ environment and utilise a variety of teaching methods.

It should equip young people to:

• Be able to identify risks and know how to keep themselves safe.
• Be aware of the law on key areas relating to relationships, sex and abuse.
• Have clear guidelines on how to access help or advice both within the College and outside.

Student will examine in more depth topics previously covered in PSHEE and RSE which include:

• Families
• Respectful relationships
• Online safety and awareness
• Being safe
• Intimate and sexual relationships, including sexual health
• Relationships, sex and the law.

By the end of the course students should know (based on Dfe guidance):

Families

1. That there are different types of committed, stable relationships.
2. How these relationships might contribute to wellbeing, and their importance for bringing up children.
3. Why marriage or civil partnership is an important relationship choice for many couples.
4. The legal status of marriage and civil partnership, including that they carry legal rights,benefits and protections that are not available to couples who are cohabiting or who have, for example, undergone a non-legally binding religious ceremony.
5. That ‘common-law marriage’ is a myth and cohabitants do not obtain marriage-like status or rights from living together or by having children.
6. That forced marriage and marrying before the age of 18 are illegal.
7. How families and relationships change over time, including through birth, death, separation and new relationships.
8. The roles and responsibilities of parents with respect to raising children, including the characteristics of successful parenting and the importance of the early years of a child’s life for brain development.
9. How to judge when a relationship is unsafe and where to seek help when needed, including when pupils are concerned about violence, harm, or when they are unsure who to trust.

Respectful relationships

1. The characteristics of positive relationships of all kinds, online and offline, including romantic relationships. For example, pupils should understand the role of consent, trust, mutual respect, honesty, kindness, loyalty, shared interests and outlooks, generosity, boundaries, tolerance, privacy, and the management of conflict, reconciliation and ending relationships.
2. How to evaluate their impact on other people and treat others with kindness and respect, including in public spaces and including strangers.
3. Pupils should understand the legal rights and responsibilities regarding equality, and that everyone is unique and equal.
4. The importance of self-esteem, independence and having a positive relationship with oneself, and how these characteristics support healthy relationships with others. This includes developing one’s own interests, hobbies, friendship groups, and skills. Pupils should understand what it means to be treated with respect by others.
5. What tolerance requires, including the importance of tolerance of other people’s beliefs.
6. The practical steps pupils can take and skills they can develop to support respectful and kind relationships. This includes skills for communicating respectfully within relationships and with strangers, including in situations of conflict.
7. The different types of bullying (including online bullying), the impact of bullying, the responsibilities of bystanders to report bullying and how and where to get help.
8. Skills for ending relationships or friendships with kindness and managing the difficult feelings that endings might bring, including disappointment, hurt or frustration.
9. The role of consent, including in romantic and sexual relationships. Pupils should understand that ethical behaviour goes beyond consent and involves kindness, care, attention to the needs and vulnerabilities of the other person, as well as an awareness of power dynamics. Pupils should understand that just because someone says yes to doing something, that doesn’t automatically make it ethically ok.
10. How stereotypes, in particular stereotypes based on sex, gender reassignment, race, religion, sexual orientation or disability, can cause damage (e.g. how they might normalise non-consensual behaviour or encourage prejudice). Pupils should be equipped to recognise misogyny and other forms of prejudice.
11. How inequalities of power can impact behaviour within relationships, including sexual relationships. For example, how people who are disempowered can feel they are not entitled to be treated with respect by others or how those who enjoy an unequal amount of power might, with or without realising it, impose their preferences on others.
12. How pornography can negatively influence sexual attitudes and behaviours, including by normalising harmful sexual behaviours and by disempowering some people, especially women, to feel a sense of autonomy over their own body and providing some people with a sense of sexual entitlement to the bodies of others.
13. Pupils should have an opportunity to discuss how some sub-cultures might influence our understanding of sexual ethics, including the sexual norms endorsed by so-called “involuntary celibates” (incels) or online influencers.

Online safety and awareness

1. Rights, responsibilities and opportunities online, including that the same expectations of behaviour apply in all contexts, including online.
2. Online risks, including the importance of being cautious about sharing personal information online and of using privacy and location settings appropriately to protect information online. Pupils should also understand the difference between public and private online spaces and related safety issues.
3. The characteristics of social media, including that some social media accounts are fake, and / or may post things which aren’t real / have been created with AI. That social media users may say things in more extreme ways than they might in face-to-face situations, and that some users present highly exaggerated or idealised profiles of themselves online.
4. Not to provide material to others that they would not want to be distributed further and not to pass on personal material which is sent to them. Pupils should understand that any material provided online might be circulated, and that once this has happened there is no way of controlling where it ends up. Pupils should understand the serious risks of sending material to others, including the law concerning the sharing of images.
5. That keeping or forwarding indecent or sexual images of someone under 18 is a crime, even if the photo is of themselves or of someone who has consented, and even if the image was created by the child and/or using AI generated imagery. Pupils should understand the potentially serious consequences of acquiring or generating indecent or sexual images of someone under 18, including the potential for criminal charges and severe penalties including imprisonment. Pupils should know how to seek support and should understand that they will not be in trouble for asking for help, either at school or with the police, if an image of themselves has been shared. Pupils should also understand that sharing indecent images of people over 18 without consent is a crime.
6. What to do and how to report when they are concerned about material that has been circulated, including personal information, images or videos, and how to manage issues online.
7. About the prevalence of deepfakes including videos and photos, how deepfakes can be used maliciously as well as for entertainment, the harms that can be caused by deepfakes and how to identify them.
8. That the internet contains inappropriate and upsetting content, some of which is illegal, including unacceptable content that encourages misogyny, violence or use of weapons.
9. Pupils should be taught where to go for advice and support about something they have seen online. Pupils should understand that online content can present a distorted picture of the world and normalise or glamorise behaviours which are unhealthy and wrong.
10. That social media can lead to escalations in conflicts, how to avoid these escalations and where to go for help and advice.
11. How to identify when technology and social media is used as part of bullying, harassment, stalking, coercive and controlling behaviour, and other forms of abusive and/or illegal behaviour and how to seek support about concerns.
12. That pornography, and other online content, often presents a distorted picture of people and their sexual behaviours and can negatively affect how people behave towards sexual partners. This can affect pupils who see pornographic content accidentally as well as those who see it deliberately. Pornography can also portray misogynistic behaviours and attitudes which can negatively influence those who see it.
13. How information and data is generated, collected, shared and used online.
    That websites may share personal data about their users, and information collected on their internet use, for commercial purposes (e.g. to enable targeted advertising).
14. That criminals can operate online scams, for example using fake websites or emails to extort money or valuable personal information. This information can be used to the detriment of the person or wider society. About risks of sextortion, how to identify online scams relating to sex, and how to seek support if they have been scammed or involved in sextortion.
15. That AI chatbots are an example of how AI is rapidly developing, and that these can pose risks by creating fake intimacy or offering harmful advice. It is important to be able to critically think about new types of technology as they appear online and how they might pose a risk.

Being Safe

1. How to recognise, respect and communicate consent and boundaries in relationships, including in early romantic relationships (in all contexts, including online) and early sexual relationships that might involve kissing or touching. That kindness and care for others requires more than just consent.
2. That there are a range of strategies for identifying, resisting and understanding pressure in relationships from peers or others, including sexual pressure, and how to avoid putting pressure on others.
3. How to determine whether other children, adults or sources of information are trustworthy, how to judge when a relationship is unsafe (and recognise this in the relationships of others); how to seek help or advice, including reporting concerns about others, if needed.
4. How to increase their personal safety in public spaces, including when socialising with friends, family, the wider community or strangers. Pupils should learn ways of seeking help when needed and how to report harmful behaviour. Pupils should understand that there are strategies they can use to increase their safety, and that this does not mean they will be blamed if they are victims of harmful behaviour. Pupils might reflect on the importance of trusting their instincts when something doesn’t feel right, and should understand that in some situations a person might appear trustworthy but have harmful intentions.
5. What constitutes sexual harassment or sexual violence, and that such behaviour is unacceptable, emphasising that it is never the fault of the person experiencing it.
6. That sexual harassment includes unsolicited sexual language / attention / touching, taking and/or sharing intimate or sexual images without consent, public sexual harassment, pressuring other people to do sexual things, and upskirting.
7. The concepts and laws relating to sexual violence, including rape and sexual assault.
8. The concepts and laws relating to harmful sexual behaviour, which includes all types of sexual harassment and sexual violence among young people but also includes other forms of concerning behaviour like using age-inappropriate sexual language.
9. The concepts and laws relating to domestic abuse, including controlling or coercive behaviour, emotional, sexual, economic or physical abuse, and violent or threatening behaviour.
10. That fixated, obsessive, unwanted and repeated behaviours can be criminal, and where to get help if needed.
11. The concepts and laws relating to harms which are exploitative, including sexual exploitation, criminal exploitation and abuse, grooming, and financial exploitation.
12. The concepts and laws relating to forced marriage.
13. The physical and emotional damage which can be caused by female genital mutilation (FGM), virginity testing and hymenoplasty, where to find support, and the law around these areas. This should include that it is a criminal offence for anyone to perform or assist in the performance of FGM, virginity testing or hymenoplasty, in the UK or abroad, or to fail to protect a person under 16 for whom they are responsible.
14. That strangulation and suffocation are criminal offences, and that strangulation (applying pressure to the neck) is an offence, regardless of whether it causes injury. That any activity that involves applying force or pressure to someone’s neck or covering someone’s mouth and nose is dangerous and can lead to serious injury or death.
15. That pornography presents some activities as normal which many people do not and will never engage in, some of which can be emotionally and/or physically harmful.
16. How to seek support for their own worrying or abusive behaviour or for worrying or abusive behaviour they have experienced from others, including information on where to report abuse, and where to seek medical attention when required, for example after an assault.

Intimate and sexual relationships, including sexual health

1. That sex, for people who feel ready and are over the age of consent, can and should be enjoyable and positive.
2. The law about the age of consent, that they have a choice about whether to have sex, that many young people wait until they are older, and that people of all ages can enjoy intimate and romantic relationships without sex.
3. Sexual consent and their capacity to give, withhold or remove consent at any time, even if initially given, as well as the considerations that people might take into account prior to sexual activity, e.g. the law, faith and family values. That kindness and care for others require more than just consent.
4. That all aspects of health can be affected by choices they make in sex and relationships, positively or negatively, e.g. physical, emotional, mental, sexual and reproductive health and wellbeing.
5. That some sexual behaviours can be harmful.
6. The facts about the full range of contraceptive choices, efficacy and options available, including male and female condoms, and signposting towards medically accurate online information about sexual and reproductive health to support contraceptive decision-making.
7. That there are choices in relation to pregnancy. Pupils should be given medically and legally accurate and impartial information on all options, including keeping the baby, adoption, abortion and where to get further help.
8. How the different sexually transmitted infections (STIs), including HIV, are transmitted.
9. How risk can be reduced through safer sex (including through condom use).
10. The use and availability of the HIV prevention drugs Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP) and Post Exposure Prophylaxis (PEP) and how and where to access them. The importance of, and facts about, regular testing and the role of stigma.
11. The prevalence of STIs, the short and long term impact they can have on those who contract them and key facts about treatment.
12. How the use of alcohol and drugs can lead people to take risks in their sexual behaviour.
13. How and where to seek support for concerns around sexual relationships including sexual violence or harms.
14. How to counter misinformation, including signposting towards medically accurate information and further advice, and where to access confidential sexual and reproductive health advice and treatment.

Relationships, sex and the law
It is important to know what the law says about sex, relationships and young people, as well as broader safeguarding issues, so that students clearly understand what the law permits and does not permit as well as the wider legal implications of decisions students make. It also provides a foundation for deeper discussion about all types of relationships and includes a range of important facts and the rules regarding sharing personal information, pictures, videos and other material using technology.

There are also many different legal provisions whose purpose is to protect young people and which ensure young people take responsibility for their actions. Other relevant aspects of law covered may relate to, for example:

• marriage, including forced marriage and civil partnerships
  consent, including the age of consent
• domestic abuse, stalking, rape, sexual offences, female genital mutilation (FGM),‘virginity testing’ and hymenoplasty
• sexual abuse, harassment and exploitation, including public sexual harassment and harmful sexual behaviour
• the Online Safety Act
• online behaviours including image and information sharing (including sexual imagery, youth-produced sexual imagery, nudes, etc, and including AI-generated sexual imagery and deepfakes). Pupils should understand the law about online sexual harassment and online sexual abuse including grooming and sextortion
• pornography
• abortion
• protected characteristics (age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex, sexual orientation)
• alcohol, smoking, vaping and nicotine products and illicit drug use gambling
• carrying knives and weapons
• extremism/radicalisation
• grooming or exploiting children into criminal activity, which can include gang involvement and county lines drug running
• hate crime
• the age of criminal responsibility
• medical consent, Gillick competence and parental responsibility.

(Back to menu)