Over the last three weeks in Living and Learning, we’ve been exploring relationships as part of our Relationships and Sex Education (RSE) curriculum.

Families

We began by thinking about families and what makes each one special. We read the wonderful story Lesedi Finds a Family by Helen Turner, which follows a young leopard searching for a family of his own. Along the way, Lesedi discovers that every family is different but all are connected by love and care. We especially loved the message at the end:

“It doesn’t matter if a family is big or small, it’s sharing love and happiness that matters overall!”

The children enjoyed discussing the many different ways families can look and the thoughtful ways we can show love and care to the people who are important to us.

Friendships

In our second lesson, we explored friendships. Through stories and discussion, we thought about what it feels like to be included or left out and discovered that it’s possible to have more than one good friend. We talked about how kindness, sharing and inviting others to join in can help everyone feel welcome.

PANTS

This week, we revisited the NSPCC PANTS rules to remind ourselves how to stay safe. The children showed fantastic maturity throughout the lesson as we used simple scientific vocabulary to name private body parts, talked about trusted adults and practised different ways to say “no” using both our words and our body language. We also discussed why it’s important to speak to a trusted adult if something ever makes us feel worried or unsafe.

Help at home:
• Talk about the different people who make up your family and what makes your family special.
• Ask your child how they can help a friend feel included at school.
• Encourage your child to remind you of the PANTS rules and identify the trusted adults they could speak to if they ever needed help.