By Eden Foster | Posted: Wednesday June 14, 2023
Sexuality Education is being taught in classrooms at Casebrook until the end of the term.
Below is an outline of the lessons that students will take part in as part of our Relationships and Sexuality Education programme. Your child will be taught using a programme Navigating the Journey - Relationships and Sexuality Education, developed by Family Planning. Classroom teachers will be teaching the programme between Weeks 8-10 of this term.
Lesson 1
Theme 1: Establishing a positive learning environment.
Activity 1: Understanding the landscape and creating a safe place for the journey. Students will understand that they are on a learning journey to learn about themselves, their relationships with others, their changing bodies, and staying safe.
Activity 2: Establishing safe ways to ask questions and inquire together. Students will develop strategies for safely asking and answering questions about aspects of relationships and sexuality.
Lesson 2
Theme 2: Who am I?
Activity 3: Understanding gender and stereotypes. Students will identify gender stereotypes and their impact on people’s sense of identity. Discuss strategies to challenge gender stereotypes that they can use.
Lesson 3, 4 & 5
Theme 3: Relationships.
Activity 2: Setting our boundaries. Students will explore the concept of intimacy and the behaviours that may feel right at different levels of intimacy. Explore concepts about consent and identify what giving and receiving consent looks like.
Activity 3: Sexual orientation. Students will affirm diversity in relationships, discuss discrimination against people who are same-sex attracted and identify ways to challenge discrimination.
Activity 4: Assertiveness and making decisions. Students will develop and demonstrate assertiveness and
decision-making skills.
Lesson 6, 7, 8, 9 & 10
Theme 4: Growing and Changing.
Activity 1: Pubertal change. Students will review and identify the changes that take place during puberty and recognise that most of them happen to everybody.
Activity 2: Managing pubertal change. Students will explore how people experience pubertal change and identify and discuss practical ways of managing changes and feelings. Explore concepts about body image and how to foster positive body image.
Activity 3: Getting to know our reproductive systems. Students will explore the human reproductive system, its functions, and be comfortable using correct terminology.
Activity 4: Conception. Students will identify and describe the sequence leading to conception.
Activity 5: Safer sex. Students will explore contraception and its use in preventing pregnancy and sexually transmissible infections (STIs). (Year 8 only)
Lesson 11 & 12
Theme 5: Staying Safe.
Activity 2: Online safety: Cyberbullying. Students will identify and manage the impact of online bullying.
Activity 3: Online safety: Pornography and sexting. Students will think critically about online pornography and sexting and identify strategies to keep themselves safe. (Year 8 only)
Activity 4: Who is on our maunga? Students will identify where they can find support in a range of situations.
You are welcome to contact myself or your child’s classroom teacher to discuss the programme or to clarify any other questions you may have. Further information can be found through the Navigating the Journey - Relationships and Sexuality Education Parent & Whānau Guide: https://www.familyplanning.org.nz/media/304754/a4_ntj-for-parents_2021.pdf
We look forward to working with the students through this exciting programme and hope that you take the opportunity to have many interesting discussions at home regarding the content of the programme your child will be taught in the coming weeks.
Ngā mihi nui,
Eden Foster
PE and Health Coordinator
Te Kura Mareko Casebrook Intermediate