The start of a new school year has a familiar feel. For children, young people and their families, it might be the feeling of new things: new uniforms and stationery sets.
For teachers, though, the year begins with its own familiar rhythm: INSET days, safeguarding updates, reflections on the year just gone and preparations for the year ahead.
This September, for many schools in England, those preparations will include changes to Relationships, Sex and Health Education following the introduction of the updated DfE statutory guidance. At Ten Ten, we’re pleased to be able to support our subscribing schools with this through our new and updated resources.
In response to the revised guidance, all our Life to the Full programmes now place greater emphasis on important topics such as personal and public safety, online wellbeing and AI, and basic first aid.
The real measure of these changes will not be the number of new lessons or topics added. It will be what they help children and young people to know, recognise and choose. Children and young people need accurate information about these subjects. But more than ever, they need the ability to think critically. They need to assess what they encounter online, recognise pressures within relationships, understand the opportunities and risks presented by new technologies, and make choices that support their own wellbeing and the wellbeing of others.
In a Catholic context, this is more than critical thinking. It is discernment: learning to recognise what is true, good and beautiful, what respects human dignity, and what leads towards genuine freedom rather than away from it.
For one child, this might be knowing how to respond in an emergency. For another, it might be recognising when something online is misleading or unsafe. For a teenager facing pressure to act in a way they know to be wrong, it might be having the language and confidence to set a boundary or ask for help. These are more than curriculum outcomes or points of data. They are capabilities that children and young people will carry with them beyond the classroom, helping them form deep, loving relationships and grow in wisdom and freedom.
We hope these developments give teachers greater confidence. Confidence that important content has been addressed carefully and sequenced appropriately, and that sensitive subjects can be approached with respect, humility and fidelity to the Catholic understanding of the human person.
These updates also provide new opportunities to strengthen communication and openness between schools and families. This matters particularly in Catholic education, where parents are recognised as the first and best educators of their children. Schools have an important role in supporting parents in this responsibility by communicating openly and listening carefully. Across Life to the Full, resources to support this partnership have also been updated, helping schools communicate clearly with parents and support conversations at home.
When Jesus says, ‘I have come that they may have life and have it to the full,’ he offers more than a programme title. He offers a vision for human life. It is that vision that we believe these new resources will help schools and families place before every child and young person.
