Debate contribution: Relationships and Sexuality Education and Healthy Young Adult Relationships

Debate contribution by Mr Paul Givan on 14 January 2025.

MLA

Mr Paul Givan

Party at the time

Democratic Unionist Party

Date

14 January 2025

Type

Debate contribution (made as a minister)

Business

Opposition Business

Heading

Relationships and Sexuality Education and Healthy Young Adult Relationships

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4736711

Read the official Assembly record

Text

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I am grateful for the opportunity to respond to the motion and the amendment. I begin by placing on record that relationships and sexuality education is an important part of the curriculum, particularly in developing our young people both as well-rounded individuals and contributors to society. Effective RSE encourages children and young people to value themselves and make responsible and well-informed decisions about their lives. Education about healthy relationships can help to address very serious societal issues, such as violence against women and girls, understanding and respecting consent, dealing with misogyny and coercive control. Violence against women and girls — indeed, violence in all forms — is a systemic and deep-rooted problem in our society. Addressing it is a key priority for our Executive. Schools are well placed to help shape the behaviours and attitudes of our young people and to support future generations to develop healthy, respectful relationships. That is done through RSE but also more widely across the curriculum and in schools' culture, policies and practice. A recent report by the National Youth Agency stressed that young people need more than just RSE in the classroom to develop healthy relationships. It emphasised the vital contribution that role models play throughout the different aspects of young people's lives, including parents, grandparents and youth and community workers. Young people need long-term, trusting relationships with adults to whom they can talk about the challenges and issues that they experience. I note that the healthy young adults relationships project report from Ulster University was referenced in the motion, and it is an important contribution to understanding the issues surrounding coercive control and its impact on young people. I pay particular tribute to the young people from the Lagmore Youth Project who played a key role, working with the research team, in developing the report. We need to listen to the views of those young people, and our young people and their families, and be informed by them. I emphasise that learning about healthy relationships is currently an important part of the school curriculum. Children and young people begin to learn about the importance of relationships as soon as they start school. From Foundation Stage, pupils should be enabled to explore themselves, their personal attributes and their own and others' feelings and emotions. Some of the issues to be explored as children progress through school include: initiating, developing and sustaining mutually satisfying relationships; human rights; and social responsibility. In post-primary school, young people are also given opportunities to explore the qualities of a loving, respectful relationship, developing coping strategies to deal with challenging relationship scenarios and strategies to avoid and resolve conflict. To support schools in the effective delivery of the RSE curriculum, CCEA has developed its RSE progression framework to provide a sequenced pathway in priority areas of RSE from Foundation Stage through to post-16. That includes the important area of domestic and sexual violence and abuse. It is also my priority to learn from, and disseminate examples of, excellent practice that we already see in our schools. Some of those were highlighted by the Education and Training Inspectorate in its 2022 survey on the preventative curriculum. For example, one post-primary school identified a group of year 10 girls who required a time-bound programme on healthy relationships in response to a recent incident. The impact of the intervention resulted in a greater understanding of respect, positive decision-making and a decrease in behavioural incidents. Fifteen teachers also volunteered to mentor year 10 girls to support their emotional well-being, and training was provided in trauma-informed practice. Teachers know best how to teach, how to convey knowledge effectively and how to unlock understanding. In order to bring the curriculum to life, teachers need the space to create lessons that engage their pupils, and children need the time to develop their thinking and to retain and apply knowledge. I would be wrong, therefore, not to note my concern about the growing tendency, not just in Northern Ireland but globally, to place unrealistic expectations on schools to solve every issue that faces society. Our rapidly changing world places new demands on society, especially the education sector, on issues from tackling poverty to addressing family breakdown to the challenges of the digital age to violence against women and girls. There is an increasing, pervasive belief that schools alone can, and should, provide the solutions. Interest groups, politicians and Governments put increasing pressure on the school curriculum to change in response to these multiple issues and competing demands. At the same time, the school curriculum lacks the space to easily add new content without causing overcrowding. While schools have a role to play — an important role — we must be careful not to burden them with being the sole agents of change. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development has raised particular concerns in that regard. An overloaded curriculum can put pressure on teachers to teach an excess of material, potentially risking superficial content coverage. Students may also feel stress and pressure due to a lack of time to consider issues thoroughly. That, in turn, can undermine their ability to engage in deeper learning. Curriculum overload can be a stressor to students and teachers —

— and even serve as an impediment to learning. I am not going to give way to the Member. Thank goodness that he does not have responsibility for RSE in our schools. Never would I want my children to be subject to the kind of approach that he would take to RSE. I will not give way to that Member. The OECD is also very clear about two issues: students need to learn deeper, not more; and subjects should not simply be independent blocks, but rather interdependent pieces of puzzle to create a coherent whole with opportunities for cross-curricular learning on key concepts. That is why I am keen not to isolate RSE from the reality of the wider school curriculum by establishing a separate one-issue task force. Rather, I wish to consider it coherently as an integral part of my wider review of the curriculum. Members will know that I have engaged Lucy Crehan to carry out a focused review of the design and delivery of the Northern Ireland curriculum. Our current skills-based curriculum was introduced in 2007. Areas of the current curriculum lack clarity on the core knowledge and skills to be developed. Critically, in every area of learning, pupils' experiences of the curriculum may, therefore, vary significantly from school to school, depending on the leadership approach to curriculum development. I want to ensure that every child is taught a broad, ambitious and knowledge-rich curriculum that develops their learning in a well-sequenced and explicit manner. Such an approach will also support our teachers with high-quality resources. We need a new approach to the curriculum in Northern Ireland that continues to limit unnecessary prescription but specifies the key knowledge and accompanying skills that every child should expect to master in core subjects at every Key Stage. That revised approach is vital for RSE, as well as all other areas of the curriculum. Focus, rigour and coherence are key curriculum design principles in all top-performing nations, with crucial topics being identified and ordered in a logical way to create well-structured progression for educational experts, not long lists of contemporary issues that politicians and interest lobbies identify. That brings me neatly to one of the amendments. I note the Committee's inquiry, which will, no doubt, gather important evidence from stakeholders. However, I am concerned that the best approaches to curriculum and pedagogy should come not from politicians but from educationalists, who are well informed about the development of a well-sequenced, communicative and thoughtful learning experience. I also highlight the fact that my officials have been part of the Gillen review implementation group since 2020. Three out of the four actions that were assigned to my Department have been completed. Work on addressing what are commonly referred to as "rape myths" will be taken forward under the leadership of the Department of Justice, with input from CCEA as needed. I am also fully committed to supporting the delivery of the strategic framework to end violence against women and girls. That will be reflected in the plans and actions that my Department will take forward. Relationships and sexuality education is a crucial part of promoting healthy relationships. I am committed to ensuring that we have a fit-for-purpose curriculum for RSE and, indeed, every subject area that carefully builds on and sequences children's key knowledge and understanding of those important issues as they progress through their education.

1,435 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

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Assessed 21 October 2026 at 11:50 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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