Relationships and Sex Education
Welcome To
Relationships, Health and Sex Education (RHSE)
Subject Leader: Scarlett Burrow
Our Vision for RHSE
At St John’s Stonefold CE Primary School, our Relationships, Health and Sex Education curriculum is rooted in our vision:
“Rooted and Established in God’s Love: Nurture, Grow, Fly”
Ephesians 3:17
We believe that every child is unique, valued and deserving of relationships built upon kindness, dignity, respect and care. Guided by our Christian EAGLE values of Empathy, Aspiration, Generosity, Love and Endurance, our RHSE curriculum supports pupils to grow in confidence, resilience and independence and prepares them to navigate relationships, health, safety and the wider world successfully.
Our Christian understanding of relationships is grounded in loving our neighbour. Children are encouraged to recognise the value of themselves and others and to develop the qualities needed to form healthy, respectful and positive relationships.
Intent
Our RHSE curriculum aims to ensure that pupils develop the knowledge, understanding, skills and vocabulary needed to:
- Build and maintain positive, healthy and respectful relationships.
- Understand different families, friendships and communities.
- Treat themselves and others with dignity, kindness and respect.
- Understand appropriate personal boundaries.
- Recognise safe and unsafe situations.
- Know how and when to seek help.
- Develop confidence, self-esteem and emotional resilience.
- Make increasingly informed choices about their physical and mental health.
- Understand how to stay safe in relationships both offline and online.
- Develop age-appropriate understanding of growing, changing and puberty.
- Respect difference and understand the importance of equality.
- Become increasingly responsible for their own health, wellbeing and safety.
Our curriculum is inclusive and supports pupils in developing positive relationships, managing emotions and making informed and responsible choices.
Implementation
RHSE forms an important part of our wider PSHE curriculum and is delivered primarily through the Coram SCARF programme, alongside relevant learning through Science and the wider curriculum.
Learning is organised through six recurring SCARF themes:
- Me and My Relationships
- Valuing Difference
- Keeping Safe
- Rights and Respect
- Being My Best
- Growing and Changing
These themes are revisited progressively from EYFS through to Year 6, allowing children to return to important concepts with increasing maturity, knowledge and understanding.
Within our mixed-age classes, the curriculum is organised through a planned two-year cycle while retaining the progression of learning from Reception to Year 6.
Teaching is age-appropriate, sensitive and inclusive. Where necessary, learning is adapted to pupils’ developmental stage, communication needs and individual requirements whilst maintaining high expectations and access to important safeguarding knowledge.
Our Statutory RHSE Curriculum
Our curriculum clearly distinguishes between:
Statutory Relationships Education
Relationships Education is statutory for primary-aged pupils.
Children progressively learn about:
- Families and people who care for them.
- Caring friendships.
- Respectful relationships.
- Online relationships.
- Being safe.
Statutory Health Education
Health Education is also statutory for primary-aged pupils.
Our curriculum includes learning about:
- Mental wellbeing.
- Internet safety and harms.
- Physical health and fitness.
- Healthy eating.
- Drugs, alcohol and tobacco.
- Health and prevention.
- Basic first aid.
- The changing adolescent body.
National Curriculum Science
Some learning relating to human development and reproduction forms part of the statutory National Curriculum for Science. This content is taught through Science and is distinct from additional Sex Education.
Additional Sex Education
Our long-term curriculum identifies additional Sex Education within the Year 6 Growing and Changing unit.
Further details about precisely what is statutory and how additional Sex Education is managed can be found in our RHSE Policy.
Progression Through School
EYFS: Foundations
Children begin by learning about themselves, people who are important to them, friendships, kindness, similarities and differences and how to get help.
They develop early understanding of keeping their bodies healthy and safe, trusted adults, life stages and how people grow and change.
Key Stage 1: Developing
Pupils develop their understanding of:
- Friendship and kindness.
- Feelings and self-regulation.
- Respecting differences.
- Bullying and seeking help.
- Safe and unsafe behaviour.
- Privacy and appropriate touch.
- Online safety.
- Healthy eating, hygiene, exercise and sleep.
- Medicine safety.
- Growing, changing and increasing independence.
Lower Key Stage 2: Deepening
Pupils explore increasingly complex concepts including:
- Healthy and respectful relationships.
- Diversity and tolerance.
- Personal boundaries.
- Privacy and consent.
- Assertiveness.
- Managing risk.
- Online behaviour and digital literacy.
- Emotional wellbeing.
- Healthy choices.
- Drugs and their risks.
- Changing bodies and puberty.
Upper Key Stage 2: Applying
Pupils develop greater independence and increasingly sophisticated understanding of:
- Positive relationships.
- Compromise, cooperation and assertiveness.
- Emotional needs and wellbeing.
- Respect, prejudice and stereotypes.
- Managing risk.
- Online relationships and digital footprints.
- Media influence and media bias.
- Artificial intelligence and deep fakes.
- Health and personal responsibility.
- Body image and self-esteem.
- Growing, changing and preparation for adolescence.
Our progression journey broadly moves pupils from:
Recognise • Name • Identify • Ask for help
↓
Understand • Describe • Distinguish • Make safe choices
↓
Explain • Recognise risk • Consider consequences • Apply strategies
↓
Evaluate • Make informed decisions • Manage risk • Think critically • Take increasing responsibility
Relationships, Respect and Equality
Our RHSE curriculum promotes positive, respectful relationships and helps children understand and appreciate the diverse society in which they live.
Children progressively learn about:
- Kindness and friendship.
- Families and people who care for them.
- Cooperation and compromise.
- Respectful and healthy relationships.
- Diversity and cultural difference.
- Stereotypes.
- Bullying and prejudice-based bullying.
- Bystander behaviour.
- Respect for others.
Teaching is inclusive and age-appropriate and reflects the protected characteristics within the Equality Act 2010. Pupils are taught to treat others with dignity, respect and kindness whilst recognising that individuals and families may hold different beliefs and values.
Keeping Children Safe
Safeguarding is an important element of RHSE.
Children progressively develop knowledge of:
- Personal safety.
- Safe and unsafe situations.
- Appropriate boundaries.
- Privacy.
- Appropriate and inappropriate touch.
- Consent.
- Trusted adults.
- Assertiveness.
- Managing risk.
- Seeking help.
- Online relationships and online safety.
Teaching enables pupils to recognise when something may be wrong and understand how and where to seek help.
If a child makes a disclosure or raises a safeguarding concern during RHSE learning, staff follow the school’s safeguarding procedures.
Online Safety and the Digital World
Our RHSE curriculum recognises that relationships and personal safety increasingly extend into the digital world.
Learning develops progressively from basic online safety towards understanding:
- Online behaviour.
- Online relationships.
- Cyberbullying.
- Privacy and personal information.
- Digital footprints.
- Media influence and manipulation.
- Misinformation and disinformation.
- Artificial intelligence.
- Deep fakes.
- Critical evaluation of digital information.
This is a particularly important part of our developing curriculum. Our 2026 parental consultation identified strong parental interest in social media, online relationships, cyberbullying and wider aspects of children’s digital lives.
Growing and Changing
Learning about growing and changing begins in EYFS and develops progressively as children mature.
Pupils move from understanding life stages, bodies and similarities and differences towards age-appropriate understanding of:
- Body parts and privacy.
- Physical and emotional changes.
- Puberty and the changing adolescent body.
- Managing change.
- Body image.
- Self-esteem.
- Preparation for adolescence.
Puberty education forms part of statutory Health Education and is taught sensitively and age appropriately.
Parents and Carers
We recognise parents and carers as important partners in RHSE and are committed to being open and transparent about our curriculum.
Parents are provided with information about what is being taught and opportunities to understand curriculum materials, ask questions and discuss any concerns with school.
In our 2026 parental consultation, respondents expressed positive views about the age-appropriateness of RHSE, its promotion of respect and empathy, and the importance of RHSE in preparing children for life. The consultation also identified improved website curriculum information as the most frequently selected way to strengthen communication further.
This webpage forms part of our response to that feedback.
Parents' Right to Request Withdrawal
It is important that parents understand exactly which elements of the curriculum can and cannot be withdrawn from.
Relationships Education
Relationships Education is statutory at primary school. Parents do not have the right to withdraw their child from Relationships Education.
Health Education
Health Education is statutory at primary school. Parents do not have the right to withdraw their child from statutory Health Education, including statutory teaching about puberty and the changing adolescent body.
National Curriculum Science
Parents cannot withdraw their child from statutory National Curriculum Science, including relevant statutory science content relating to human development and reproduction.
Additional Sex Education
Parents have the right to request that their child be withdrawn from all or part of any additional Sex Education provided by the school beyond statutory Relationships Education, Health Education and National Curriculum Science.
At St John’s Stonefold, additional Sex Education is identified within the Year 6 Growing and Changing curriculum.
Requests should be made in writing to the Headteacher. The school will discuss the request with parents and, where appropriate, the child. Alternative work will be provided where a pupil is withdrawn from additional Sex Education.
Full arrangements are explained within our RHSE Policy.
Impact
By the time pupils leave St John’s Stonefold, our ambition is that they will:
- Understand the importance of positive, healthy and respectful relationships.
- Treat themselves and others with dignity, kindness and respect.
- Recognise and respect difference.
- Understand appropriate personal boundaries.
- Recognise risk and make increasingly informed decisions.
- Know how and when to seek help.
- Understand how to keep themselves safe online and offline.
- Develop confidence in managing their physical and emotional wellbeing.
- Understand the physical and emotional changes associated with growing up.
- Think increasingly critically about the digital world.
- Demonstrate resilience, responsibility and increasing independence.
Our curriculum is designed so pupils move from recognising and naming simple concepts in EYFS towards evaluating information, managing risk, making informed choices and taking increasing responsibility by the end of Key Stage 2.
What Makes RHSE Special at St John’s Stonefold?
- A curriculum rooted in our Christian vision and EAGLE values.
- A carefully sequenced curriculum from EYFS to Year 6.
- Coram SCARF as our principal curriculum programme.
- Strong links between relationships, health, wellbeing and safeguarding.
- An explicit focus on kindness, empathy, dignity and respect.
- Progressive teaching about online relationships and the changing digital world.
- High expectations alongside appropriate adaptation for pupils with SEND.
- A curriculum designed for our mixed-age school through a carefully planned two-year model.
- Open communication and partnership with parents.
- A commitment to preparing children safely, confidently and respectfully for adolescence and the next stage of their lives.
