Teaching students (children and young people) how to ‘be safe’.
At the heart of the statutory guidance and teaching RSHE is a focus on keeping children safe. The principle purpose in primary years education – is to help safeguard pupils from an early age through age appropriate education.
What key stages? Key Stage 1 (KS1) and Lower/Upper Key Stage 2 (LKS2/UKS2).
They must be taught the importance of being respected, reporting any bullying, the rules to staying safe and interpreting online behaviour.
Teaching safety throughout primary years helps to safeguard from any type of risk or danger so that a pupil is less likely to be harmed.
This must include the importance of privacy, why keeping secrets from caring family members can be damaging or harmful. The difference between safe and unsafe touch and how to respond to unknown adults must form a key part of your lesson plans. To safeguard pupils, children must know how to identify and report unsafe interactions and where or who to report this to, so they can get the appropriate help.
What to include when teaching children about safety?
In order to meet the statutory guidance, the following must be covered:
- What sorts of boundaries are appropriate in friendships with peers and others (including in a digital context).
- About the concept of privacy and the implications of it for both children and adults; including that it is not always right to keep secrets, especially if they relate to being safe.
- That each person’s body belongs to them, and the differences between appropriate and inappropriate or unsafe physical, and other contact.
- How to respond safely and appropriately to adults they may encounter (in all contexts, including online) who they don’t know.
- How to recognise and report feelings of being unsafe or feeling bad about any adult.
- How to ask for advice or help for themselves or others, and to keep trying until they are heard.
- How to report concerns or abuse and the vocabulary and confidence needed to do so.
- Where to get advice e.g., family, school and/or other sources.
Teaching children how to be safe throughout the primary years with the help of Yasmine and Tom.
With the consistency of character, Yasmine and Tom bring to life the dangers and importance of being safe throughout the primary years.
They cover various age-appropriate concerns through the key stages of education with topics like “My Brilliant Body” and “Keeping clean and taking care of myself” covered in KS1 through to UKS2 where difficult subjects like “Safe and unsafe touch”, “Online images” and “Getting help” are delivered through engaging interactions and lesson plans.
Yasmine and Tom are beautifully animated in our online RSHE resource. It makes teaching RSHE effortless, helping you to meet DfE guidelines on teaching children the importance of safety.
Helpful teaching aids and resources that pupils teaching students the principles of being safe throughout KS1 and KS2.
If you’d like to know more about our RSE literature for pupils, read our article everything you need to know about our ‘best in class’ RSE literature, designed to support teaching RSE in primary years.
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