Debate contribution: Healthy and Respectful Relationships
Debate contribution by Mr Paul Givan on .
- MLA
- Mr Paul Givan
- Party at the time
- Democratic Unionist Party
- Date
- 17 September 2024
- Type
- Debate contribution (made as a minister)
- Business
- Oral Answers to Questions
- Heading
- Healthy and Respectful Relationships
- Assembly identifier
- Official Report component 4537143
Read the official Assembly record
Text
The curriculum provides opportunities to educate young people to develop healthy relationships. Pupils have the opportunity to explore their management of a range of feelings and emotions and those of others, initiating, developing and sustaining mutually satisfying relationships; explore the qualities of a loving, respectful relationship; and develop coping strategies to deal with challenging relationship scenarios. The Council for the Curriculum, Examinations and Assessment (CCEA) relationships and sexuality education (RSE) hub ensures that schools have access to a range of up-to-date, relevant resources. Teachers can download guidance documents and existing resources as well as new RSE resources that CCEA has developed to help teachers to address sensitive issues with their pupils. The resources provide content that can be used or built upon and are designed to offer schools flexibility in their approach to the delivery of RSE. That approach is intended to enable all schools to deliver effective programmes in line with the particular ethos and RSE policy of the school and to ensure that the wide-ranging needs of our young people are met. Schools are, of course, free to use materials from other sources, and some schools have developed in-house resources together with pupils. The Department would encourage schools to consider that model, provided that they are satisfied that the materials support teaching of the minimum content. Beyond that, the flexibility in our curriculum empowers schools to tailor their approach to teaching and the use of resources to meet the needs of their pupils.
245 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.
Assessment
Jev’s structured answers met the documented threshold for “not flagged”.
- Overall probability that the activity is being used to promote, exploit or escalate an identity-based controversy: 0.03 (flagging needs at least 0.70; at or below 0.30 is not flagged).
- None of the five culture-war criteria was met (each was below 0.60).
- No identity-based framing was identified (1.00).
- Subject area: Gender, sexuality, abortion and related social issues.
- The overall probability was at or below the not-flagging threshold.
This is an AI-generated assessment of the text, made against published criteria. It is not a finding of fact about the MLA or their intentions. The Assembly record itself is the fact.
Jev’s structured answers
| Question | Probability | Met? |
|---|---|---|
| Identity framing | 0.03 | No |
| Sectarian or communal antagonism | 0.01 | No |
| Cultural grievance politics | 0.02 | No |
| Dog-whistle messaging | 0.02 | No |
| Controversy escalation | 0.03 | No |
| Legitimate policy scrutiny | 0.46 | No |
| Overall judgement | 0.03 | At or below not-flagging threshold |
| Option | Probability |
|---|---|
| No identity-based framing (chosen) | 1.00 |
| Reports or questions it | 0.00 |
| Criticises or condemns it | 0.00 |
| Adopts it | 0.00 |
| Subject | Probability |
|---|---|
| Gender, sexuality, abortion and related social issues | 0.81 |
| No identity-related subject | 0.14 |
| Education structures, integration and community division | 0.03 |
| Sexism, misogyny, ageism and other equality groups | 0.01 |
| Flags, emblems, symbols, names and memorials | 0.00 |
Assessed 21 October 2026 at 11:11 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.
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