Ms Amanda Geary:

It is important to mention that schools take their duty of care towards their students very seriously across the whole curriculum, including the area of SPHE and RSE. There is a requirement, under child protection, that all primary and post-primary schools must have an SPHE and a comprehensive RSE programme in place. If the inspectorate finds that a school does not have that in place, we will draw the attention of the school to the child protection circular and guidelines and tell it that because the programmes are not in place, it is not fully compliant.

No school wants to find itself in a position where it is deemed in a published report to be non-compliant with child protection procedures and guidelines. It is rare, as my colleague stated, that we come across a school that is not implementing a relationships and sexuality education, RSE, programme.

To come to the second question on whether the topic of consent is dealt with, we have a comprehensive programme for SPHE and RSE. By the end of the three years of junior cycle and the two years at senor cycle, it is very clear that there is a Department expectation of where students and schools will be at in terms of the learning outcomes. However, the school has absolute autonomy to determine when it delivers on each topic and how much time it provides to deliver on each topic. For instance, if a school believes it is extremely important to deal with the topic of consent mid-way through first year or at the end of first or second year, that decision rests purely with the school. It determines when and how much time it spends on any particular topic.

It was mentioned earlier that, by their nature, SPHE and RSE lessons are interactive and that the students bring their own needs to the discussion. Frequently, there will be an SPHE plan in place, developed by the school and which follows the curriculum guidelines but it will be and is frequently adapted to match the needs of the students. If an issue arises in a particular class group, the SPHE programme will be amended to address that need.