Respectful Relationships

Respectful Relationships on the agenda

The Victorian Government is implementing Respectful Relationships across Victorian schools and early childhood services through a leading and partner schools initiative. This initiative, provides intensive training and support to over 1000 Government, Catholic and independent schools to implement the whole school approach to Respectful Relationships. 

It is important to note that the Royal Commission into Family Violence identified the critical role that schools and early childhood education have in creating a culture of respect to change the story of family violence for future generations. As such, in 2016, respectful relationships education became a core component of the Victorian Curriculum from Foundation to year 12, and is being taught in all government and Catholic schools and many independent schools.

Respectful Relationships is about embedding a culture of respect and equality across our entire community, from our classrooms to staffrooms, sporting fields, fetes and social events. This approach leads to positive impacts on student’s academic outcomes, their mental health, classroom behaviour, and relationships 

As part of this program, on Tuesday 6 March, two staff from Coburg High School, Darren Symons (Health & PE Leader) and David Snaddon (Student Wellbeing) attended a Community of Practice meeting for Moreland Schools. The meeting was an opportunity for lead schools in the Respectful Relationships Program to meet their partner schools and discuss and share their experience of piloting this important program. As a lead school, it is Coburg High School’s responsibility to share our successes and challenges in implementing the whole of school approach to Respectful Relationships. As such it was a chance for Darren and David in their presentation to highlight:

• The successful implementation of Respectful Relationships in the Health curriculum at years 7-10
• The events we held in 2017 highlighting our commitment to combating family violence and gender based violence towards women such as:
  • The clothesline project as part of the week without violence
  • The Respectful Relationships mural
• The professional learning undertaken to build our staff’s capacity in regard to understanding the drivers of violence towards women and how to respond to disclosures from students about family violence.

Moving forward, the Respectful Relationships Implementation Team is looking to continuing the process of implementing a whole school approach to Respectful Relationships. We are also looking forward to working more closely with our partner schools of Coburg Primary School, Moreland Primary School, Mercy College and Glenroy College. Members of the Coburg High School community are welcome to be a part of this important reform and are welcome to contact either David or Darren about this. More information can be found at: http://www.education.vic.gov.au/about/programs/health/Pages/respectfulrelationships.aspx?Redirect=1

David Snaddon                                                           Darren Symons

Student Wellbeing                                                     Health & PE Leader

david.snaddon@coburg.vic.edu.au                   darren.symons@coburg.vic.edu.au