Respectful Relationships

BBPS is a Lead School for ResilIence Rights & Respectful Relationship, and this semester, as teachers have been working through the RRRR curriculum in classrooms, we have been looking closely at Topic 7: Gender and Identity. With Australian data highlighting a lack of knowledge around how to prevent, seek help or intervene in situations of gender-based violence, there remains a critical need to teach our students about the causes and consequences of gender inequality as we work towards violence prevention. This learning takes place at a whole school level, highlighted here. 

In Senior School, students have been engaging with these topics, and the Grade 5 SRC representatives Tess Quarry, Bella Waters and Liam Stevenson, shared what they have been learning.  

Tess: Recently we’ve learnt about the distinction between sex and gender. Sex is what you are born as, gender is who you want to be, it’s about identity. 

Bella: We’ve also been learning that there are different kinds of violence

Liam: and how to prevent them. 

Tess: Violence doesn’t have to just be physical, it can be verbal, psychological and sexual. We’ve been learning about the steps you can take to protect yourself and others from violence and how to support victims of violence.

Bella: We’ve also talked about how violence can be in person but it can also happen online. We’ve learnt a lot about steps to take to protect yourself and others, like telling trusted adults, asking for help, coming to your teacher as well as being aware of your surroundings, knowing if you’re in a safe public place and how to get help and who to ask. 

Tess: This learning is important because if it does happen - and it can happen - we know how to deal with it. 

Liam: Having skills to handle these situations reduces the risk of situations escalating and getting out of hand or becoming dangerous. Bella: It helps us know if we do experience something like this we have the knowledge to cope with these things and strategies to deal with these situations.