RSHE

The RSHE curriculum was updated in September 2026. New guidance builds positively upon what we already teach, with a stronger focus on the realities children face today, particularly online.

For primary-aged children, the key updates include:

Enhanced Online Safety: Greater emphasis on navigating digital spaces safely, understanding age-restricted content, and recognising online boundaries.
Mental Health & Emotional Wellbeing: Expanded focus on helping children identify and manage complex feelings, including building resilience, and understanding grief, loss, and loneliness.
Practical Personal Safety: New, explicit content to help children recognise risks around roads, railways, fire, and water safety.
Body Protection & Safeguarding: Reaffirming best practice by teaching children accurate anatomical vocabulary for body parts. This is a vital safeguarding tool that reduces stigma and empowers children to speak up if they ever feel unsafe.
Diverse Families: Ensuring our lessons continue to reflect and respect the diverse family structures within our modern British society (such as single parents, same-sex parents, foster carers, and blended families).

For secondary-aged children, the key updates include:

Wellbeing Online: The curriculum expands beyond basic internet safety to address modern digital cultures. New mandatory topics include the risks of AI and deepfakes, online scams, and the impact of harmful online influencers, misogyny, and toxic subcultures.
Sexual Harassment & Consent: Lessons will look beyond basic consent to focus on healthy, ethical relationships. Clear, age-appropriate teaching will cover the legalities of sharing indecent images, stalking, upskirting, and pornography.
Gender Identity & Inclusion: In line with updated guidance, schools will focus on the legal and biological facts surrounding sex and gender reassignment under the Equality Act. The guidance states that schools must not teach contested ideological views—such as the concept of an internal "gender identity"—as absolute fact.
Mental Health & Resilience: Lessons will focus heavily on emotional regulation, helping pupils distinguish between normal difficult emotions (like stress or loneliness) and clinical mental health conditions. Crucially, any teaching around self-harm or suicide prevention must avoid discussing specific methods.
Physical Health & Medical Literacy: The health curriculum expands to cover gynaecological health (including endometriosis and menopause), knife crime awareness, and how young people can safely navigate NHS healthcare services.

Approach to Teaching

We work in partnership with our parents and carers, ensuring that information about our RSHE curriculum is published on our website and that we provide annual meetings so that there is an opportunity to review the content of sessions, and discuss any queries they may have. We have developed the RSHE curriculum taking into account the age, developmental stage, needs and feelings of our pupils. If pupils ask questions outside the scope of this policy, teachers will respond in an appropriate manner so that pupils are fully informed and don’t seek answers online.

We will use (and adapt) resources from a number of established charities and providers including:

Equals
NSPCC
PSHE Association
Oak National Academy
The Money Charity
Spending Sense

Opportunities are presented for pupils (where appropriate/possible) to:

Experience taking and sharing responsibility.
Feel positive about themselves and others.
Reflect on their perceptions and experiences.
Develop the understanding, language, communication skills and strategies required to exercise personal autonomy wherever possible.
Carry out or take part in daily personal living routines.
Make real decisions (with support where necessary so that they can act upon them).
Take part in group activities and make contributions.
Develop and maintain positive relationships and interactions with others.
Recognise and celebrate their achievements and successes.

Policy

Below you can find our RSHE Primary and Secondary policies which include the curriculum map and how we will communicate with families.

JFK RSHE - Primary Policy

JFK - Secondary RSHE Policy

RSHE Lead / Contact Details

The RSHE Lead at JFK Special School is Michelle Richardson

Please contact the school via info@jfk.lihtrust.uk if you have any questions.

RSHE Curriculum

RSHE is comprised of three main strands:

RELATIONSHIPS

Families, caring friendships, respectful relationships, online relationships and keeping safe.

HEALTH AND WELLBEING

Physical well being, mental health, understanding emotions, growing, changing and puberty, change and loss, seeking help, well-being online, healthy eating, looking after ourselves, keeping safe, health protection and prevention

LIVING IN THE WIDER WORLD

Responsibilities, independence, communities, managing conflict, media and digital resilience and online safety, keeping safe in the community, economic well-being, aspirations and careers

Why is RSHE Important?

Our students are growing up in an increasingly complex world with new opportunities, but also new challenges. As a school, we want our students to flourish in the world they find themselves in. RSHE teaching is an important part of equipping our pupils for life in 21st century Britain, enabling them to embrace diversity, make the most of technology, understand the importance of wellbeing and safety, and develop the skills which lead to them being able to sustain healthy and strong relationships.

We are fully committed to working in partnership with families to achieve the best outcomes for our children and young people. This includes awareness of mental health and ensuring pupils know how to recognise signs of distress and where to seek help. We want to teach the different concepts of relationships through age and SEND appropriate ways. We want to support celebrating difference and diversity. It is important for all our learners to know that everyone has the right to a healthy and safe relationship.

Part of the Learning in Harmony Trust

JFK Special School

JFK
Special School