Review Date: April 2027 Policy Coordinator: the Designated Safeguarding Lead Governance Approval: the Co-Chair of Governors Version: 10.26
1. Policy overview
The Haven is a trauma-informed, neurodivergent-affirming specialist online education provision for learners aged 12–17. It provides inclusive, developmentally appropriate and evidence-informed Relationships, Sex and Health Education (RSHE) that reflects the lived experience and identities of its learners.
The RSHE curriculum gives young people the knowledge, skills and confidence to make informed, safe and ethical decisions about their relationships, wellbeing and bodies, both online and offline.
2. Statutory and guidance framework
- The Relationships Education, Relationships and Sex Education and Health Education (England) Regulations 2019
- DfE statutory guidance Relationships Education, Relationships and Sex Education and Health Education (revised July 2025)
- Children and Social Work Act 2017; Education Act 2002
- Equality Act 2010
- Keeping Children Safe in Education 2026
- Online Safety Act 2023
The Haven is not a DfE-registered school, so the RSHE regulations and guidance are adopted as a voluntary benchmark. The Haven follows them in full because commissioners, families and learners are entitled to expect the same standard as a school.
3. Scope of RSHE at The Haven
- Relationships education for all learners: friendship, family, online interactions, consent and respect.
- Sex education at KS3 and KS4, delivered in an inclusive, staged and age-appropriate way, with clear information about rights, the law, health, gender identity and sexual orientation.
- Health education: puberty, mental health, digital safety, substance use, physical wellbeing and self-advocacy.
A curriculum guide is published annually and shared with families. Key topics include:
- Consent and boundaries
- Online relationships, online bullying and staying safe online (section 4)
- Equality, respect and the protected characteristics (section 5)
- Online safety and AI risks, including AI chatbots and companion-style systems, fake and AI-generated accounts, and online scams
- Nudes and semi-nudes, including digitally altered or AI-generated images (deepfakes); that creating or sharing indecent images of anyone under 18 is a crime; and how to get help without shame if an image has been shared
- Misogyny, harmful online influencers and online sub-cultures (for example “incel” communities) and how they can shape views about relationships and sex
- Sexual harassment and sexual violence, and how to report it
- Mental health and self-regulation
- Gender identity and inclusive relationships
- Safer sex and reproductive choices
- Harm prevention, including sextortion, coercion and exploitation
4. Online relationships and online bullying
Because Haven learners learn and socialise largely online, online relationships run through the whole RSHE curriculum. Learners are taught:
- what healthy and unhealthy online friendships and relationships look like, including recognising grooming and manipulation;
- what online bullying is: hurtful messages, exclusion from group chats, impersonation, sharing images or screenshots without consent, pile-ons and doxxing;
- how online bullying affects people, and that prejudice-based online abuse targeting a protected characteristic is serious;
- how to block, mute and report on platforms, how to keep evidence safely, and that they must never save or forward nude images, including of themselves;
- who to tell at The Haven, and that The Haven will act on online bullying even where it happens outside Haven platforms;
- their rights and responsibilities online, including the law on sharing images and on threatening or harassing messages.
This teaching links directly to the Anti-Bullying Policy and the Online Safety & Acceptable Use policy.
5. Equality and the protected characteristics
RSHE at The Haven teaches learners about the Equality Act 2010 and the nine protected characteristics: age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex, and sexual orientation. Learners are taught:
- that discrimination, harassment and bullying because of a protected characteristic is wrong and, in many cases, unlawful;
- to recognise prejudice-based language and behaviour, including sexism and misogyny, homophobia, biphobia and transphobia, racism, religious prejudice and disability-related (including neurodivergence-related) prejudice;
- that families and relationships take many forms, including same-sex parents and LGBT relationships, taught in a factual and respectful way;
- how to challenge prejudice safely and where to get support.
All resources are checked for inclusive, non-stereotyping language and images.
6. Curriculum design and delivery
The programme is:
- Spiral: key topics are revisited with increasing depth.
- Flexible: adapted to learner needs and current issues.
- Inclusive: language and resources affirm all genders, neurotypes, bodies and backgrounds.
- Evidence-based: medically and legally accurate.
Sessions are delivered by Haven educators, with occasional input from specialist professionals. Learners can pause, reflect or revisit sensitive content.
7. Accessibility and inclusion
Delivery is adapted for learners with SEND using multimodal tools (visual, written, spoken). Trauma-informed strategies build emotional safety, and learners are told in advance when sensitive topics are coming up.
8. Parent and carer engagement
The Haven involves parents and carers by:
- consulting them when this policy is reviewed;
- sharing the curriculum guide and, on request, a representative sample of the teaching materials used;
- offering information sessions or 1:1 conversations.
Parents and carers can ask in writing to withdraw their child from sex education (not relationships or health education). The request leads to a supportive conversation with the Head. A learner may choose to receive sex education from three terms before their 16th birthday, whatever the parental request.
9. Safeguarding and confidentiality
All RSHE teaching follows the Child Protection and Safeguarding Policy. Learners are told that confidentiality cannot be guaranteed if a safeguarding concern arises. Any disclosure is passed to the DSL the same day.
10. Monitoring and evaluation
RSHE delivery is reviewed termly through learner feedback and engagement, curriculum audits and lesson observation, and staff reflection and training needs. This policy is reviewed annually and approved by the Proprietor and governing body.
11. Links to other policies
Child Protection and Safeguarding; Online Safety & Acceptable Use; Anti-Bullying; Relational Behaviour and Regulation; SEND; Equal Opportunities, Equality & Diversity; Anti-Racism.
12. Availability
This policy is published on The Haven’s policy site and is available as a printed copy on request. Questions go to the RSHE Coordinator: the Deputy DSL.