- Feelings and body reactions
- Relationships with others
- How people care for each other
- Body parts (private and non-private)
- Changes in body and abilities since birth
- Rights and responsibilities
- Family structures
- Recognising and responding to safe and unsafe situations
- Positive relationships and support networks
- Strategies to stay safe and seek help
- Appropriate and inappropriate touching
- Ways to show respect to others
- Making safe decisions
The importance of child protection education
The rationale for child protection education as part of the mandatory PDHPE K-10 syllabus.
It is mandatory to teach child protection education in every Stage of learning from Kindergarten to Year 10 as part of the NSW Education Standards Authority (NESA) Personal Development, Health and Physical Education (PDHPE) K-10 Syllabus. Senior students in NSW government schools extend their learning about respectful relationships, protective strategies, power, abuse and violence as part of the mandatory 25 hour Life Ready course.
This education aims to assist students in:
- developing skills in recognising and responding to unsafe situations
- seeking assistance effectively
- establishing and maintaining respectful and equal relationships
- strengthening attitudes and values related to equality, respect and responsibility.
Curriculum overview
Through PDHPE students learn about rights and responsibilities in relationships and how to develop and maintain respectful relationships. Students learn to recognise and respond to abuse and violence and develop help-seeking skills and strategies to access support for themselves and others.
In primary school, students learn about the roles and responsibilities in positive relationships and the effects of actions such as bullying and violence on the disruption of relationships. Students learn to form and maintain relationships through developing skills in communication, conflict resolution and strategies for coping with changes in relationships.
In secondary schools, there is a significant focus on teaching about gender issues and developing in students a commitment to, and skills for, challenging the abuse of power. This is central to the development of students’ attitudes and behaviours that are based on equity, respect and responsibility.
The Child Protection Education curriculum materials address three main themes. These themes are integrated within each unit of work.
Recognising abuse
Protective skills cannot be used unless children recognise situations of potential abuse or when abuse is occurring. It is important that students develop knowledge and skills, appropriate to their age and stage, about what constitutes abuse.
Power in relationships
When discussing power in relationships, particular attention is given to building confidence in relationships which are positive and caring. Skills in establishing and maintaining positive relationships, including accepted cultural practices related to caring touch, are reinforced.
Protective strategies
With knowledge about positive relationships and about child abuse, children can take appropriate actions if they are in threatening situations. When learning about protective strategies, students are given the opportunity to analyse situations, to identify feelings, and to explore alternative courses of action and their consequences.
Curriculum summaries – Early Stage 1 to Stage 3
Early Stage 1
Stage 1
- Feelings and body reactions
- Relationships with others
- How people care for each other
- Body parts (private and non-private)
- Changes in body and abilities since birth
- Rights and responsibilities
- Groups students belong to
- Bullying
- Recognising and responding to safe and unsafe situations
- Positive relationships and support networks
- Strategies to stay safe and seek help
- Appropriate and inappropriate touching
- Communicating and cooperating with others in a respectful way
- Making safe decisions
Stage 2
- Rights and responsibilities
- Rights and responsibilities in relationships
- Emotions and warning signs in different situations
- Power in relationships
- Male and female body parts and puberty-related changes
- Positive relationships and support networks to manage change
- Gender stereotypes and expectations
- Types of abuse
- Bullying behaviour and strategies to seek help
- Recognising and responding to safe and unsafe situations
- Strategies to stay safe and seek help
- Communicating and cooperating with others in a respectful way
- Making informed and safe decisions
Stage 3
- Rights and responsibilities
- Rights and responsibilities in relationships
- Emotions related to feeling unsafe and ways to manage these
- Different types of relationships and why they change
- Abuse of power in relationships
- Gender stereotypes and expectations
- Different types of abuse including physical, emotional and sexual abuse
- Bullying behaviour, including harassment
- Support networks to seek advice and support
- Strategies to stay safe and seek help
- Actions and behaviours that show respect and inclusion of others
- Strategies to stay safe and seek help including No-Go-Tell
- Actions and behaviours that show respect to and inclusion of others
Curriculum summaries – Stage 4, Stage 5 and Stage 6 (Life Ready)
Stage 4
- Caring and respectful relationships
- Rights and responsibilities in different relationships
- Abuse and power
- Gender stereotypes
- Trusting your body’s response to safe and unsafe situations
- Influence of family, media and peers on power and relationships
- How to access help
- Support networks
- Bullying and harassment, including homophobic bullying and racism
- Protective strategies to stay safe
- Acknowledging and understanding consent in intimate relationships
Stage 5
- Norms, stereotypes and expectations in relation to identity
- Valuing diversity and inclusivity
- Developing equal and respectful relationships
- Assessing behaviours and situations as safe or unsafe
- Positive and negative power in relationships
- Abuse and neglect
- Recognising and responding to abusive situations
- Gender and violence
- Discrimination, harassment and vilification
- Skills and strategies to manage unsafe, abusive and violent situations in relationships
- Communication, connections and seeking help
- Sexual choices and the importance of consent
- Accessing networks and services to seek advice and support
Stage 6 (Life Ready)
- Establishing and managing relationships
- Forming, evaluating and ending relationships in online and offline environments
- Responding to change, for example, family roles, work roles and relationships
- Applying relationship skills, for example effective communication, active listening, conflict resolution, assertiveness, negotiation and mediation
- Understanding rights and responsibilities in different relationships
- Developing dependence, independence, interdependence
- Bullying and harassment
- Valuing and advocating for the rights of self and others
- Changing perspectives and challenging stereotypes
- Respecting others
- Asserting a stance on a situation or decision
- Challenging discrimination based on race, sex, age, disability, religion, culture, gender and sexuality
- Upstander behaviour (online and offline)
- Power and influence in relationships, for example, positive use of power and situational power
- Expectations of partners and others
- Coercion
- Challenging and changing attitudes and beliefs about power, assault and relationship violence
- Promoting equality and respect in relationships
- Changing roles
- Preventing relationship violence and sexual assault
- Challenging and changing attitudes to violence, including domestic violence