Chamber and committees

Curriculum for Excellence is the national approach to learning and teaching for young people aged 3 to 18 in Scotland. It provides significant flexibility, within broad national guidelines, for teachers to develop lessons which best meet the needs of individual learners. Teachers, head teachers and other professional educational practitioners are best placed to decide what is taught in Scotland’s schools. Schools are encouraged to focus on the individual interests of classes and pupils to make lessons more relevant and therefore more rewarding.

‘Conduct of Relationships, Sexual Health and Parenthood (RSHP) Education in Schools’ provides guidance for teachers on the conduct of teaching RSHP education within the health and wellbeing organiser of Curriculum for Excellence. RSHP education is an integral part of the health and wellbeing area of the school curriculum in Scotland. The curriculum is not statutory and it is for local authorities and schools to decide how to deliver the curriculum based on local needs and circumstances. However, we are specific about the need for children and young people to gain knowledge appropriate to their age and stage of education. This aspect of the curriculum is intended to enable children and young people to build positive and safe relationships as they grow older and should present facts in an objective, balanced and sensitive manner within a framework of sound values and an awareness of the law.