Christchurch South Karamata Intermediate School

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Green title page showing a swirling lines pattern (from the Relationships and Sexuality guide) along with Ministry of Education Te Tāhuhu o te Mātauranga logo and ‘Relationships and Sexuality Education A series of effective practice showcases’

Teacher (Libby) in a classroom

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Libby: This is you growing up in the world and the world is going to be throwing lots of ideas at you, so you need to know yourself first in your values.

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Green title page showing a swirling lines pattern (from the Relationships and Sexuality guide) along with:

‘Christchurch South Karamata Intermediate School’
‘From planning to action’

Libby in a classroom talking with students

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Libby: I'm Libby Gent. I'm a teacher here at Christchurch South Karamata Intermediate. I've been teaching here for 10 years, all up I think I've been teaching for about 16 years.

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Green title page showing a swirling lines pattern (from the Relationships and Sexuality guide) along with: ‘What helps inform your RSE planning?’

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Libby: I have two stepsons who at the time were intermediate-aged and they were talking about what they were doing as part of the RSE and I was kind of, this sounds really good so I actually contacted the school. It turns out they were using the Family Planning resource and we got that into the school

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Aerial footage of the school. Video clips of signage around the school showing the name of one of the blocks - ‘Ngata’

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Libby: and it gave us a really good baseline on what to teach, but then we moved on to make it more relevant to our classrooms and the students we were working with.

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Screenshot of the Relationships and Sexuality Guide cover page

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Libby: Now with this new RSE guide I think it gives us even more room or impetus to make sure that we are working with our own community of learners. Looking at the wider hauora we use the concept of te whare tapa whā in all of our classrooms.

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Footage of a colourful classroom wall display titled Te Whare Tapa Wha showing A4 pages of houses, each titled with the student’s name and showing cut-out images of aspects of hauora that are important to the student.

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Libby: We start the year off with that so the students get an idea of who they are, their well-being, looking at the four walls, and how that influences them.

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Image of the Whare Tapa Whā diagram showing a whare labelled with the four elements of hauora: Taha tinana (Physical well-being); Taha hinengaro (Mental and emotional well-being dimension); Taha whānau (Social well-being); Taha wairua (Spiritual well-being)

Libby talking to camera in a classroom.

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Libby: So there's a really good foundation with te whare tapa whā. Solving conflicts in the circle time, so then when we come to that more explicit RSE education that's often maybe taught in a block of time, the students are quite comfortable having those kinds of discussions.

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Screenshot of the Relationships and Sexuality Guide ‘Key learning at level 4’

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Libby: Really great part of the guide is looking at for us the level three and four part and looking at the three areas. So the students as themselves, and then looking at relationships and then how the wider world influences them.

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Green title page showing a swirling lines pattern (from the Relationships and Sexuality guide) along with: ‘How do you plan for quality RSE?’

Libby talking to camera in a classroom.

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Libby: We work with a collaborative partner but we also work in a pod learning pod space there's four teachers so beforehand you'll be working with your collaborative partner you're teaching the same year group you've probably been teaching a mix of the same students but you're back in just one class and we would have an outline of what we plan to teach but we also set up a question box.

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Student (Aimee) talking to camera in a classroom

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Aimee: So we could put in questions about things we would want to know and they would get answered.

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A piece of paper is shown being put into a cardboard box with a slit in the top.

Libby talking to camera in a classroom.

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Libby: So that's a chance for students to write a question they might not be comfortable asking to the whole class.

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Libby working on a laptop in a classroom

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Libby: So after maybe a couple of lessons we've taught we sent home a little question bank through our digital learning space and just to say you know give parents a bit of a way in so rather than going what are you doing in your RSE education at the moment, oh um you've been learning about stereotypes in the media. How are females represented, how are males represented, how did that make you feel?

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Libby talking to camera in a classroom.

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Libby: We've also given them some ideas to help when students maybe ask them a tricky question.

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Students playing on the playground

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Libby: One tip we have is to ask the child first what do you know about this and that might just give you a little bit of a lead in or what part would you like to know about.

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Close up of a cardboard box that has been labelled ‘Question Box’ on top of a table in a classroom with students in the background sitting at a table.

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Libby: Those questions can really guide where your lessons are going to go because that's what the students want to know about and we do find that it can take a while for the students to warm up.

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Libby talking with some students at a table

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Libby: They're kind of putting pieces together or they've found that confidence to ask that question and then that's the chance for you to sit back. You could choose to answer the questions at that lesson but I would recommend to have a look at them maybe after you've taught a lesson and then it kind of helps frame what you're going to teach in the next couple of lessons.

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Libby talking with some students at a table

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Libby: We find it around that time of teaching that staff members go "hey I got this question, how do I answer it?" and so we kind of encourage the staff to share you know how do you say them so the experienced staff or staff that's done it before all you have to say is this or put it this way or put it on the students.

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Green title page showing a swirling lines pattern (from the Relationships and Sexuality guide) along with ‘How do ākonga best learn in RSE and what is valued learning?’

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Libby: I like a continuum. I like I think giving a chance for the kids to move around. Again using those scenarios and coming up, sharing ideas what would giving you know what would you say? What would another group say?

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Two students (Ayana and Max) in a classroom talking to camera

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Max: We had a little bundle of cards with decisions on them. You would match the decision to the scenario and then you find out the consequence of the decision you made.

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Two students (Ayana and Max) in a classroom looking at a page of paper together

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Libby: Working in small groups, if you are struggling to come up with ideas you might hear someone else's.

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Libby talking to camera in a classroom.

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Libby: We do a lot of work around relationships and solving conflicts. We have every once a week or every fortnight circle times in the classroom where students get a chance to bring up things that are working for them and not working for them and it's sort of a student-led way of solving conflicts.

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Two students (Aimee and Anouk) in a classroom talking to camera

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Anouk: There was just one activity where we made a massive list of everywhere we could take somebody on a date - that was fun.

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Two students (Ayana and Max) in a classroom talking to camera

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Ayana: There was one activity that we did and it was just like a picture of our body and we just had to match the word to where the body part was.

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Libby talking to camera in a classroom.

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Libby: Having those circle times or class forums, those discussions that are regular just means that your voice matters, your voice you know you should be heard. Discussing the idea of consent around anything like making sure you're comfortable saying feeling safe to say no, using that critical eye - not believing everything you see and how to form your own opinion and making sure it's got that wider world aspect in it.

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Screen shot of a word cloud with ‘Social Media’ in the centre and associated words around the outside

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Libby: But also we teach our students as part of being a citizen in the digital world is just like in the real world if you don't like what you see you don't look at it.

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Libby talking to camera in a classroom.

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Libby: We often collect images from magazines or online to show the stereotypes and how you can beat them.

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Green title page showing a swirling lines pattern (from the Relationships and Sexuality guide) along with: ‘What are the changing learning needs of ākonga in RSE contexts?’

Libby talking to camera in a classroom.

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Libby: It's definitely been in the last few years we get questions around pornography which can be a bit jarring for that's definitely one they're going "oh how do I answer this?" and then definitely around gender identity and the different diverse communities out there.

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Aimee talking to camera in a classroom.

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Aimee: We know about this stuff more than older generations because they wouldn't have heard of it much and it's like now it's like a thing that we hear about most days and people can relate to it.

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Libby talking to camera in a classroom.

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Libby: Definitely lots about relationships. How to communicate or what's okay. How to break up with someone, how to go out with someone, how do you know someone likes you. I had a group of year eight learners that I'd had for year seven and we came around to our RSE bunch of lessons and we had the question box and one student asked me "are you going to ask all the questions this year because you didn't last year?" and I was like "so what was the question about?" and I think her confidence had got she was willing to ask that in front of the whole class she said "I want to know how to kiss properly." I think for that one it was kind of - I put it back on the class and then they had a really interesting discussion. Some were like "oh you don't kiss, we're too young for that" and then they had a great discussion around what they thought was okay for someone who was 12, 13.

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Green title page showing a swirling lines pattern (from the Relationships and Sexuality guide) along with: ‘What do ākonga have to say about RSE learning?’

Two students (Ayana and Max) in a classroom talking to camera

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Ayana: What we like about South is that the teachers ask us what we want to learn

Max: and also what we believe is important to understand.

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Two students (Aimee and Anouk) in a classroom talking to camera

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Aimee: Stereotypes and the media is probably a big one. I feel like that affects everyday life now because of social networking there's so much opinion in the world you need to be able to tell which is good and which is not.

Ayana: I think it's important to learn about gender and sexual identity so that people feel included and that makes everyone feel happy.

Anouk: A bit about how you don't just have to identify as female or male.

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Green title page showing a swirling lines pattern (from the Relationships and Sexuality guide) along with: ‘Where to from here?’

Libby talking to camera in a classroom then footage of the school and students together in classrooms

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Libby: I think the guide has really highlighted for us the importance of consulting with our Māori whānau, our Pasifika family and just getting their input on what's important for them around RSE education. I think for us as a school it's looking at that gender identity. Looking at who you are, where you sit in the world. I'd want them to as they begin to navigate their world as teenagers to help feel comfortable with themselves. And from that comes knowing what's going to happen to them biologically and to know what's right and wrong for themselves.

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Closing green title page with Ministry of Education Te Tāhuhu o te Mātauranga logo, www.education.govt.nz , and New Zealand Government logo.