by Katrina Mostyn, AISNSW Education Consultant


A Nation Sized Challenge

I'm sure you'd agree the world that young people are growing up in today is vastly different from the one you and I grew up in.

The students in our schools have fast and easy access to an incredible amount of information online... and not all of it positive. 

There are a lot of voices out there for them to listen to - and we need to guide students to know which attitudes and behaviours are the supportive ones to help them thrive in their relationships and help shape the community of tomorrow.

That's why schools are being called in to deliver Consent and Respectful Relationships Education across the state (and more broadly nationally). 

The Respectful Relationships: Proactive Education initiative fosters collaboration with academics, experts and participating schools through consultancies, roundtable discussions and professional learning. 

AISNSW welcomes the opportunity to partner with Independent schools to co-create a pathway that enables all children and young people to thrive in their relationships. It is evidence-based and will support a comprehensive whole-school approach to consent and respectful relationships education.

Academic Deb Ollis notes, "Schools have always taught their students to be respectful and have done this very well. Respectful Relationships Education is about building the skills, attitudes and behaviours of young people to navigate their relationships in the complex world we see in 2024. It’s also to address the drivers of gender-base violence that is occurring in our communities across the country."

Equipping Children and Young People

"Young people didn’t make this mess, but we really need to enlist their help in cleaning it up," says Dr Ollis.

So, it's incredibly important this education builds young people up and gives them all the tools necessary to foster healthy, safe and equal relationships.

This initiative is focused on ‘primary prevention’. Primary prevention refers to changing attitudes, behaviours, norms and practices to help prevent an undesirable consequence. As a nation we are already familiar with this public health approach with other major social and health issues such as smoking and drink driving. 

Schools are one of the key settings for this approach. We have a strengthened new NSW PDHPE K-10 syllabus which will be at the forefront with rigorous teaching and learning strategies. We then need other whole-school strategies, such as building awareness and commitment from all school staff and families so they can support, model and reinforce this learning outside the classroom too. 

It’s about bringing everyone along to have the greatest impact on our students.

We're Calling You In....

We’re calling everyone in to be part of the solution by empowering our children and young people and our school communities.

Schools can find out more about Respectful Relationships: Proactive Education on the AISNSW website.