[Text on screen reads, ‘We recognise the Ongoing Custodians of the land and waterways where we work and live. We pay respect to Elders past and present as ongoing teachers of knowledge, songlines and stories. We strive to ensure every Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander learner in NSW achieve their potential through education.’]

[Text on screen reads, ‘Aboriginal nations and languages in NSW. Adapted from Aboriginal Languages and Nations in NSW and ACT © Reconciliation NSW’. Screen shows a map of NSW which attempts to represent the language, social or nation groups of Aboriginal Australia.]

[Text on screen reads, ‘Case Study Schools across the state are implementing Respectful Relationships Education.’ The map then zooms in on the Eora Country, identifying Burwood Girls High using their school emblem and Wiradjuri Country identifying Orange High School and Anson Street School using their school emblems.]

Ali McLennan – Principal, Orange High School

My vision for Respectful Relationships Education (RRE) in my school is a whole school safe culture that's inclusive and ensures that students understand what respectful relationships look like and feel like in the world, and also within our school.

Kathy Lye – Deputy Principal, Burwood Girls High School

The vision is that we can look at what we are doing around a framework and see the areas that we can improve but also ensure that our practices are the most up to date in terms of what we're delivering to our students. But we also have recognised that there's been an increase in certain student issues that we are managing at the time, whether it's, you know, students wanting to understand more about consent, about coercive control, about harassment, whether it's online or in the workplace, or whatever's happening after school.

[Screen shows teachers collaborating using the School Excellence Framework and the Strength Assessment Tool.]

Melanie Meers – Principal, Anson Street School

Look, I was very excited to sign up for the Respectful Relationships Education program because we want a school where the children feel safe, by explicitly teaching respect and how to communicate their consent and how they function and communicate socially. We really feel that the students will gain a lot from this program. We find the Respectful Relationships Education program at our school aligns really well with our trauma-informed approach, and we're excited to see where it goes in the future, given the support of joining this program.

Jenny Rosser – Deputy Principal, Anson Street School

Teaching Respectful Relationships Education is about helping our kids develop the skills, the knowledge and the attributes, so they can develop really safe, strong and really positive relationships, not just at school and with their peers, but in their families and also out into the community.

Melanie

What I've really noticed is that children are more confident in their social interactions, and that's something that we really want to come out of this program, that they're positive in their communication and that they're able to make great choices.

[Video shows a teacher interacting with students in a classroom.]

Teacher

That's quality learning, right? Yeah, that's right.

Elke Cunial – Assistant Principal, Anson Street School

Leadership and community play such an important role in supporting the implementation of RRE in our school to ensure that expectations are similar across our school. Our executive present as a united front in providing clear expectations for staff and students to model and set the expectations of respectful relationships.

[Screen shows image of Strength Assessment Tool.]

Voulla Kalogeropoulos – Head Teacher Wellbeing, Burwood Girls High School

One of the strategies we also have is we have a strength-based approach to our PL for our staff, especially our wellbeing staff. So, once a term, we plan specific learning around the areas that we are going to focus on. We believe if we get the wellbeing right across the school, then the learning will also happen.

Tara Credlin – PDHPE teacher, Burwood Girls High School

School leadership plays a very key role in supporting RRE in schools and our school leadership particularly offers the professional development and access to specific resources that help us deliver it confidently but also giving us the knowledge to understand RRE and how to deliver it effectively and successfully. When complex situations arise, the leaders are able to direct us and guide us appropriately, not only with the students, but then check in with us as the teachers as well.

Mia Kumar – Principal, Burwood Girls High School

We have a very strong collegial executive that helps manage our school in the best possible way for the best possible outcomes.

Kerry Chopping – Head Teacher Wellbeing, Orange High School

Our school leadership team are amazingly supportive of us through every facet of teaching, learning, curriculum, wellbeing, and it's no different with Respectful Relationships Education. We feel the excitement around this program and when we see that from a leadership perspective, it's great to get on board and work with the team to make it happen.

Sally Cheetham – Deputy Principal, Inclusion and Support, Orange High School

We have what we call the OHS (Orange High School) way, which is operations and processes for all of our staff and our students and our community members. It's a way for us to communicate our expectations around behaviour and around processes around the school. So, we saw a great opportunity to embed Respectful Relationships Education straight into the OHS way to have respectful relationship expectations for our students, for our staff, and for our community, and to teach those explicitly to our students.

Kylie Winslade – Head Teacher Administration – Students, Orange High School

We would love to see our students not only informed, but to be empowered. We would like our staff to have a developed understanding and confidence in supporting our school. And we'd like to see our community aligned and connected with our vision of Respectful Relationships Education.

Melanie

So we ensure that we actively engage the parents and carers so that Respectful Relationships Education goes beyond the classroom. It's a really key part of this program to ensure that we have consistency between school and home.

Jenny

I would advise other leaders considering embedding RRE in their school to consider it as a whole school cultural shift, not just a program that they're putting out for kids. I'd advise that they really invest in their staff, really look for early buy-in and build their confidence and their knowledge and capacity through quality, professional learning. Confident and committed staff are going to really make a program work and help embed it and also demonstrate it and reflect respectful relationships, use that language amongst themselves, which children get to then see.

Ali

I've been really excited by the wide range of resources, the professional learning, the insights that are given to us, it's a wonderful experience to be able to connect with other schools and, and have that understanding of what they're experiencing with their student bodies. So I think it's just a great opportunity and I would absolutely recommend to go for it.

[End of transcript]

[Text on screen reads, ‘We recognise the Ongoing Custodians of the land and waterways where we work and live. We pay respect to Elders past and present as ongoing teachers of knowledge, songlines and stories. We strive to ensure every Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander learner in NSW achieve their potential through education.']

Mia Kumar – Principal, Burwood Girls High School

Respectful Relationships Education (RRE) is incredibly important for all schools, for ours it's something that we've tried to work on for many years to improve the culture for students to feel welcome and feel part of the school.

Kristen Lee – PDHPE teacher, Burwood Girls High School

We're excited to be a part of the department's RRE program. We feel that it will give students the tools to build safe, respectful and equitable relationships, and just also help to build that culture within the school.

Alex Tohme – PDHPE teacher, Burwood Girls High School

I think Respectful Relationships Education is really valuable for students because it equips them with the knowledge and the skills that they need to have strong, positive relationships throughout their lives. And it also allows them to see what's not respectful and not positive in a relationship. And whether they are in relationships now or in the future, they're all going to engage in them at some point. And so, I think it's really important that they have those skills and the knowledge that they need to maintain positive relationships throughout their lives.

Jess Hodder – Assistant Principal, Anson Street School

We are committed to embedding a K–12 Respectful Relationships Education program into all teaching and learning programs. We want to ensure that all students have the support to engage in these lessons meaningfully and that they will have the skills to have these conversations later in life.

Tara Credlin – PDHPE teacher, Burwood Girls High School

When we collaborate as staff members, we have staff meetings, we have cross curriculum opportunities where we can hear other strategies that teachers use in other subjects and see how we can also try and include it in our own program.

Kerry Chopping – Head Teacher Wellbeing, Orange High School

My role is being a champion of Respectful Relationship Education. I think getting on board with the processes, following the big picture, working together collaboratively and leading by example, making sure the knowledge is transparent, the skills and development happen seamlessly.

Elke Cunial – Assistant Principal, Anson Street School

We incorporate the social emotional learning framework to develop self-awareness and empathy in communication, problem solving skills, as well as working with the students to build on their emotional vocabulary, which then brings in a language of respectful relationships across all areas in our school and our learning.

Sophie Fardell – Teacher, Orange High School

The strategies I use to teach the students equality and safety and respect is definitely building rapport with them initially. I think it's really important that you have a relationship with your students and you know how they learn, you know who they are as a human, you know their strengths and their weaknesses, and then using that to build on the content, to deliver those really impactful and insightful lessons.

Tara

Even just at the start of the year, I develop with the students that expectation of behaviour and also inclusivity, that safe environment, and then when we deliver particular sensitive topics that come under Respectful Relationships Education, we reemphasise those behaviours and expectations were set at the start of the year.

Kristen

So we use a variety of strategies to engage our students in learning about respectful relationships. We do lots of role plays and scenario-based activities as well as case studies and real-world examples. So we use current news articles, videos and podcasts to help engage the students in Respectful Relationships Education.

Alex

One of the challenges in delivering the RRE program, I think is just the delivery of the sensitive topics. Things like consent, discrimination, bullying, and just also being aware that everyone's from different cultures, there's different backgrounds and addressing that content in a sensitive way. But having said that, it is very rewarding when you can deliver that content respectfully to a class of students from different backgrounds because you know that you are giving them the skills and knowledge that they need to then go off and have positive, respectful relationships in the future.

Chloe Barrett – Teacher, Orange High School

The value of RRE in our school is that it builds a culture of inclusion, of respect, of belonging, and it's allowing everyone in our school – staff and students – to feel like they have a place where they feel safe. It creates that place of everyone feeling safe in, in our environment, and it also equips them with lifelong skills that they can take outside of the classrooms, and I guess that has that ripple effect, where they take those skills out into their communities with their families and we see that that culture start to, to grow within our, within our area and in our community.

[End of transcript]