Gilberthorpe 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’

Screenshot of the Relationships and Sexuality Guide cover page

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Clayton: This document brings you back to earth and explains to you, it's not just sex ed, it's relationships.

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Green title page showing a swirling lines pattern (from the Relationships and Sexuality guide) along with:
‘Gilberthorpe School’
‘Ara Tū Whakatā’
‘Guide to practice’

Teacher (Clayton) in a classroom talking to a class of students who are sitting on the floor

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Clayton: I've been teaching for five years. I started up in Wellington and was there for about two and a half years and then was looking to buy a house. I ended up coming down to Christchurch. And then I found this lovely school here at Gilberthorpe School. It was exactly what I wanted. It was a very diverse group of students and a diverse community.

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Green title page showing a swirling lines pattern (from the Relationships and Sexuality guide) along with ‘What is your role at the kura?’

Teacher (Clayton) in a classroom talking to the camera

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Clayton: I'm employed by the Ministry in the Kahui Ako as an across school teacher and our Kahui Ako has come up with three achievement challenges one of them being well-being, hauora.

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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)

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Clayton: And it's about working with other schools to enhance the well-being of students, staff and whānau.

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Teacher (Clayton) talking to a group of three students in a classroom

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Clayton (talking to the students): You're using the words in the text, that's absolutely right we've got these feelings - it's unfair...

Clayton: You don't want to come in looking like the expert. Teachers are always trying their best, they're working at very high stress levels and you need to first build that whānaungatanga.

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Green title page showing a swirling lines pattern (from the Relationships and Sexuality guide) along with ‘How do we use policy to guide practice?’

Screenshot of the Health and physical education webpage from The New Zealand Curriculum Online website.

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Clayton: We have our health curriculum that is the basis for everything that we need to be teaching and that's a strong area of that is relationships and the RSE guide is going to be a great guide to get us back in line and also make principals, teachers feel comfortable with teaching a lot of the core elements of the health curriculum.

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Screenshot of the Relationships and Sexuality Guide ‘Key learning at level 1’

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Clayton: This document brings you back to earth and explains to you actually there's more to it. It's not just sex ed it's relationships. And as RSE is one of our focuses for the cluster, the first step that we're gonna have to take is the upskilling. So professional development so making sure that there's time given for principals and teachers to sit down and look over the guide to see how it relates to their policies - do they need to update any of their policies? We're then also setting our teachers up for success because they'll have the tools on how to work this relationship that they're having with the student.

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A screenshot of a school’s set of colourful and up-beat graphics that depict their values: ‘Choose your attitude; Make someone’s day; Be there; Play’. Around these word are other, smaller words and iconography that expand on the central themes: ‘Encourage; Respect; Positive; Considerate’; ‘Kindness; Thank you; Help others; Manners; Yay’; ‘Participate; Be a friend; Supportive; Have a go!; Help’; ‘Fun; Friends; Enjoy; Laughter; Togetherness’

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Clayton: A lot of schools are working on their values at the moment and a lot of the valued teaching is a lot of the things that are in this book but it's not consistent, it's not coherent.

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A display in a classroom entitled ‘Fish’ with cut-outs of colourful fish next to each letter. Below the title are three rows of four small kete that have students’ names written on them. Next to the kete is an A4 page titled ‘Fish! Tickets Rewards’ that depicts what rewards might be received when a certain number of tickets have been collected as a student, as a class, as a hub and as a school.

Screenshot of the Relationships and Sexuality Guide cover page

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Clayton: Whereas this guide is saying you are doing a lot of these things. At Gilberthorpe School we can even go through here and say yep no we're doing this, we're doing this, but we possibly need to work on that.

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Green title page showing a swirling lines pattern (from the Relationships and Sexuality guide) along with ‘How do we set up for success in RSE?’

Teacher (Clayton) in a classroom talking to the camera

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Clayton: The most important thing I believe and very strongly I push within our school is around the idea of setting up for success so it's all the core of what makes a successful teacher as seen through the Ministry docs, the ERO docs everything. And that's setting up your environment to make sure that everyone feels comfortable. Getting to know the students yourself through again relationships which is what we're teaching, but you need to have that trust model between each other environmentally also with the student and that goes beyond that also with the whānau, the other people that are in their bubble.

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Teacher (Clayton) in a classroom talking to a class of students who are sitting on the floor

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Clayton (talking to the class):"Hands up if you've had a relationship before? One person? Only two people?” (encouraging more students to put their hands up)

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Teacher (Clayton) in a classroom talking to the camera

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Clayton: I've been using a range of resources making sure to focus on the RSE levels. Drawing from other different resources out there, but going along that progression line. And it's really important that so going forward here schools need to start that at level one.

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Teacher (Clayton) in a classroom talking to the same class of students who are sitting on the floor

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Clayton (talking to the class): "So we have a relationship right? Yeah? So hands up if you've had a relationship before?" (more students put their hands up) "Relationships happen all the time".

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Teacher (Clayton) in a classroom talking to the camera, holding the Relationships and Sexuality guide.

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Clayton: If someone said to me that they didn't want to teach sex ed or relationships and sexuality I would pull out this book.

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Screenshot of the Relationships and Sexuality Guide ‘Key learning at level 1’

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Clayton: Level one it's about knowing about body safety, hygiene. It's not just going to be about sex. How to make friends - oh that's what we're doing at school but we're supporting the students we're giving the opportunity through lessons, through experiences to actually become a successful lifelong learner. I designed my relationship lesson through the past experience of my students you know always got to build on their prior knowledge.

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Large wall display in a classroom showing ‘Zones of Regulation’ with four coloured posters that depict each zone through cartoon images of student faces:

Red Zone: mad, out of control, scared
Blue Zone: sad, sick, tired
Green Zone: happy, calm, ready to learn
Yellow Zone: excited, worried, silly

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Clayton: My students have done a lot of work on the zones of regulation so understanding our feelings and how we go about that.

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Teacher (Clayton) in a classroom talking to the same class of students who are sitting on the floor

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Clayton (talking to the class): "If I'm feeling a little bit lost, let's say I'm outside and I can't find a friend to play with, I'm feeling a little bit down, I'm walking around, what kind of zone do you think I'd be in?"

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Teacher (Clayton) in a classroom talking to the camera

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Clayton: However for these kids they understand the levels of emotions that we're in but it's about applying it.

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Teacher (Clayton) talking to a group of three students in a classroom

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Clayton (talking to the students): "What else could Sophie do, do you think?"

Student: "She could, yeah she could go around and ask people to play with her."

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An A4 page with a paragraph at the top and some lines for students to write underneath. The paragraph reads: “Sophie and Aman used to be best friends but lately Aman has been playing with Moana and she won’t let Sophie join in. Sophie is feeling sad and jealous. Yesterday she scribbled on Moana’s school bag because she was feeling so bad.
What colour is the traffic light for Sophie’s thoughts?
What could Sophie do?
Who could Sophie talk to?”

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Clayton: I created some scenarios where they could delve in deeper into what emotion or what the situation is happening there

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Four students are at a table looking at the scenario. One student reads out the scenario as the others listen.

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Student: “Lately, Aman has been playing with Moana and she won’t let Sophie join in”.

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Teacher (Clayton) in a classroom talking to the camera

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Clayton: And the final aim is to build a relationship, not just shut the door on it. It's going to be a big wake-up call and I just want teachers to know that it's okay where they're at with their understanding of relationships and sexuality education.

Clayton: Go back to the RSE guide, this new document that's just come out, and it will put your mind at peace. Making sure that we're teaching the health curriculum from a very low level, we're setting these students up for success so that we can have open and honest conversations about gender, about equality, about all the beautiful things that make us who we are.

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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.