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).
- 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
At Connaught Special school we use the PSHE Education Planning Framework for Pupils with SEND a guideline for our PSHE/RSHE curriculum planning. Lessons are personalised for all learners, taught in a way that is appropriate and meaningful for their development.
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.
RSHE Policy
- Here you can find our RSHE Primary policy which includes the curriculum map, how we will communicate with families and a curriculum map.
- Here you will find our RSHE Secondary policy.
Contact Details
The RSHE Lead at Connaught Special School is Natasha Searle
Please contact the school via info@connaught.lihtrust.uk if you have any questions.
Parent consultation slides
Please click here for our Parent Consultation slides.
FAQs
Please click here for questions asked and answered during our Parent Consultation.