Findings

Methods:

Through conducting online surveys, interviews, focus groups and trialling a resource in a class, the project engaged 18 schools, 26 teachers, 25 students, 22 Muslims from 2 different communities, 2 Christians, 1 Jewish person and 1 Catholic person.

School based findings:

• Teacher’s confidence in delivering RSE drops when trying to engage students of faith
• Some teachers are concerned about offending students of faith and feel unequipped to intersect faith into their RSE teaching
• Most teachers acknowledge and are ready to dismantle their internal bias in relation to their students of faith to enable for more inclusive RSE teaching
• Some schools want to better connect with parents and communities of faith to ask questions to better understand the lives and cultures of their students of faith that could elevate the inclusivity of their RSE teaching
• Students prefer discussion, videos and active learning in comparison to reading and writing activities

Community based findings:

• The most contested RSHE topics amongst parents of faith include LGBT+ inclusion, menstruation, and safe sex
• There is a huge spectrum of perspectives within the Muslim communities involved in this project, ranging from a desire to work with schools to influence RSE, to a belief that the current sex education curriculum is “evil”
• Many of the Muslim parents we spoke to were unaware of recent changes made to the RSE curriculum, some of which responded to their current concerns
• Open communication between parents of faith and schools is the most highly desired request from parents where their concerns can be addressed, schools are able to widen their understanding of different faiths, cultures and values, leading to the alleviation of tension around RSE