Relationships, Sexual Health and Parenthood

RSHP sensitive lessons

The time of year has arrived where most schools deliver the sensitive aspects of RSHP. A North Lanarkshire school has successfully been delivering contraception education to Primary 7 classes. This is their story.

We have been teaching all aspects of the RSHP programme for two years, including the sensitive aspects of learning.  We have successfully delivered these lessons, following the Healthy Schools planning framework from Early Level through to the end of Second Level. As a school, we decided to deliver contraception education to our Primary 7 children using the lesson plans and PowerPoint slides from the RSHP.scot website.

It has been identified that the concerns of parents and carers can be a barrier to teaching sensitive aspects of learning. We are aware that there is bad press around the teaching of RSHP as well as parents/carers being concerned about how age appropriate the lesson content is for their child(ren).  For this reason, we ensure that our parents/carers are well informed.  We are completely transparent from the outset, and issue clear, detailed information at the beginning of each school session. This is the powerpoint we use to inform the parents of the Primary 7 part of our programme. RSHP Powerpoint We do receive some phone calls from parents/carers after we have shared this RSHP information.  That provides us with the opportunity to offer reassurance to parents/carers who might be anxious and to let them to come into school to speak with us and look at the lesson resources teachers will use in class.  We ensure that parents/carers feel empowered and know that their decision on whether to include their child(ren) in RSHP lessons, or not, will be respected.