ABSTRACT
Research from a range of countries, across a wide time frame, suggests confidence levels and attitudes of staff towards providing Relationships and Sex Education (RSE) has a huge impact on the success of an establishments’ RSE programme. To confuse things a little more, people as teachers may view our learners in terms of their cognitive rather than chronological age and can be prone to using subjective judgment instead of objective assessment to determine our learners’ RSE and learning needs. RSE requires a particular style of pedagogy not often embraced in other curriculum areas. Relationships and Sex are huge topics, surrounded by controversy, stigma and diverse beliefs. It is very easy to ‘drop’ certain themes from our RSE sessions due to the difficulty they present. As a safeguarding tool, providing RSE may also support the understanding and reporting of sexual abuse.
