In 2016, Respectful Relationships Education became a core component of the Victorian Curriculum from Prep to Year 12, and is a mandatory program being taught in all government and Catholic schools and many independent schools. At Courtenay Gardens Primary School the Respectful Relationships Program is implemented across the school from Prep to Grade 6 using age specific teaching and learning activities. These are incorporated weekly into our teaching and learning programs.

The Respectful Relationships program supports schools to promote and model respect, positive attitudes and behaviours. It teaches our children how to build healthy relationships, resilience and confidence. This is about embedding a culture of respect and equality across our entire community, from our classrooms to staffrooms, sporting fields and social events. This approach leads to positive impacts on student’s academic outcomes, their mental health, classroom behaviour, and relationships between teachers and students.

Respectful Relationships is a Victorian school initiative that supports school leaders, educators and our school communities to promote and model respect and equality – and to teach our children how to build healthy relationships, resilience and confidence. We know that changes in attitudes and behaviours can be achieved when positive attitudes, behaviours and gender equality are lived across the school community, and when classroom learning is reinforced by what is modelled in our school community.

Respectful Relationships acknowledges that children of any age have challenges to overcome, teaching social and emotional skills appropriate to their age and level of maturity.  In the primary years, Respectful Relationships focuses on treating everyone with respect and dignity. It is taught as part of the Health and Physical Education and Personal and Social Capability areas of the Victorian Curriculum.

The classroom program focuses on 8 key areas:

• TOPIC 1: EMOTIONAL LITERACY - The ability to understand, express using vocabulary and manage ourselves and other people’s emotions and respond appropriately to these emotions.
• TOPIC 2: PERSONAL STRENGTHS - Students need to develop a vocabulary to help them recognise and understand strengths and positive qualities in themselves and others. They identify desired strengths in others and ones they need to develop when life presents challenging situations
• TOPIC 3: POSITIVE COPING - Provide opportunities for students to identify and discuss different types of coping strategies and extend their repertoire of positive coping strategies. Positive self-talk is a key strategy for coping with negative thoughts, emotions and events. It is associated with greater persistence in the face of challenge, and can be learnt or strengthened through practice.
• TOPIC 4: PROBLEM SOLVING - The classroom program provides a number of learning activities to develop students’ problem-solving skills. The activities in the program assist students to develop their critical and creative thinking skills, and to apply them to scenarios exploring personal, social and ethical dilemmas.
• TOPIC 5: STRESS MANAGEMENT - teaching positive approaches to challenges that arise. The activities focus on the ways in which self-calming strategies can be used to manage stressful situations.
• TOPIC 6: HELP-SEEKING – Help Seeking is designed to help students discuss the importance of seeking help and providing peer support when dealing with problems that are too big to solve alone. Scenario-based activities help students identify situations in which help should be sought, identify trusted sources of help, and practice seeking help from peers and adults.
• TOPIC 7: GENDER AND IDENTITY - Students learn about key issues relating to human rights and gender identity, and focus on the importance of respect within relationships. There are age-appropriate learning activities that assist students to understand and critique the influence of gender norms on attitudes and behaviours.
• TOPIC 8: POSITIVE GENDER RELATIONSHIPS - This teaches students to build and set boundaries in positive relationships between and within genders, and the importance of accepting difference and diversity. It plays an active role within the prevention of gender-based violence.

Term 1: Emotional Literacy and Personal Strengths

Term 2: Positive Coping and Problem Solving

Term 3: Stress Management, Gender Identity and Help Seeking

Term 4: Gender Identity, Positive Gender Relations and Help Seeking

You can find more information about Respectful Relationships by following this link: https://www.vic.gov.au/respectful-relationships