What are Protective Behaviours?

Protective Behaviours refers to behaviours which enable children to recognise situations in which their personal space and sense of safety may be compromised.

At Ravenshead C of E, we aim to equip our children with the life skills that will help them to stay safe and to thrive.  Our curriculum allows the children to build confidence and resilience by exploring our right to feel safe. It starts from the belief that we cannot be scared into feeling safe, and therefore it avoids a focus on scary scenarios and rigid sets of rules for how to deal with unsafe situations. Instead it teaches an ability to recognise when we are not feeling safe, and provide skills and tools to enable individuals to take action and get help when they need it.  This focus on protective behaviours will help to promote good citizenship in our children but will also be an abuse prevention strategy.  The children will learn to recognise that life is also about challenging ourselves and taking safe risks in order that we try new things, and that this is both part of their development and an important life skill.

Protected Characteristics

In addition, children learn about protected characteristics (age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex, and sexual orientation) through our Dimensions curriculum and RHE programme.

Specific lessons are delivered annually during our Keeping Safe Week in February with a focus on the following behaviours:

Through our wider curriculum lessons, the following protective behaviours are taught:

Foundation

• Healthy relationships - how to make these and maintain them with children and adults.
• Keeping themselves and others safe.
• Risk assessing situations, e.g. woodwork, climbing, using the toaster.
• Emotional literacy - recognising and naming positive and negative emotions and what to do with these.
• Community cooperation - learning how to interact and be happy and safe with others.
• Hygienic behaviours and healthy living habits, e.g. healthy eating, keeping yourself clean, enjoying physical activity.

Year 1 & 2

Sun Safety

• To understand the importance of sun safety.
• To know how to keep safe in the sun.
• To recognise and manage risk in everyday activities.

Road Safety

• To learn rules for, and ways of, keeping safe, including basic road safety and about people who can help them to stay safe.
• To develop an awareness of the Green Cross Code.
• To demonstrate basic road safety skills.

Drug Safety

• To learn about the importance of medicine safety.
• To recognise that some substances can help or harm the body.

Personal Safety

• To learn about the difference between secrets and surprises.
• To understand when not to keep adults' secrets.
• To seek help form an appropriate adult when necessary.

Emotional Safety

• To learn about who to go to for help and advice.
• To recognise that there are people who care for and look after them.
• To know how to keep safe and how and where to get help.
• To recognise and respond to issues of safety relating to themselves and others and how to get help.

Internet Safety

• To learn about the importance of using the internet.
• To know how to keep safe and how and where to get help.
• To use strategies to stay safe when using ICT and the internet.
• To know the importance of self-respect and how this links to their own happiness.

Staying Safe

• To know how to respond safely and appropriately to adults they may encounter (in all contexts, including online) whom they do not know.

Year 3 & 4

E-Safety

• To know the rules and principles for keeping safe online, how to recognise risks, harmful content and contact, and how to report them.

Online Privacy

• To begin to make responsible choices and consider consequences.
• To use ICT safely including keeping electronic data secure.
• To use ICT safely including using software features and settings.
• To know how information and data is shared and used online.

Internet Use

• To know that for most people the internet is an integral part of life and has many benefits.
• To know about the benefits of rationing time spent online, the risks of excessive time spent on electronic devices and the impact of positive and negative content online on their own and others' mental and physical wellbeing.
• To know why social media, some computer games and online gaming, for example, are age restricted.
• To know where and how to report concerns and get support with issues online.

How to Help

• To take responsibility for their own safety and the safety of others and be able to seek help in an emergency.
• To know when and how to make an emergency call.
• To recognise the importance of local organisations in providing for the needs of the local community.
• To behave safely and responsibly in different situations.

Rules

• To understand why rules are needed in different situations.
• To recognise that rules may need to be changed.

Thinking Ahead & Taking the Lead

• To understand why it is important to plan ahead and think of potential consequences as a result of their actions.
• To understand why it is important to behave responsibly.
• To recognise that actions have consequences.

Gender Stereotypes

• To know and understand the terms 'discrimination' and 'stereotype'.
• Challenge stereotypes relating to gender and work.

Managing Money

• To learn about and reflect on their own spending habits/choices.
• To understand why financial management and planning is important from a young age.

Year 5 & 6

Immunisation

• To know the facts and science relating to allergies, immunisation and vaccination.

Death and Grief

• To develop strategies for understanding, managing and controlling strong feelings and emotions and dealing with negative pressures.
• To manage changing emotions and recognise how they can impact on relationships.
• To know about and understand the cyclic nature of life and how death is an inevitable part of this cycle.

Managing Conflict

• To understand the need for empathy when peers are experiencing conflict at home.

Drugs, Alcohol, Tobacco and Substance Abuse

• To take action based on responsible choices.
• To identify the different kinds of risks associated with the use and misuse of a range of substances and the impact that misuse of substances can have on individuals, their families and friends.
• To make responsible, informed decisions relating to medicines, alcohol, tobacco and other substances and drugs.

Basic First-Aid

• To know concepts of basic first-aid, for example dealing with common injuries, including head injuries.

Internet Safety

• To know how to be a discerning consumer of information online including understanding that information, including that from search engines, is ranked, selected and targeted.

Race and Ethnicity

• To learn about racial discrimination and its impact on societies, past and present.

Gender Stereotypes

• To learn about gender discrimination and its impact.
• To challenge stereotyping and discrimination.

Mental Wellbeing

• To know that bullying (including cyberbullying) has a negative and often lasting impact on mental wellbeing.

Online Relationships

• To know that the same principles apply to online relationships as to face-to-face relationships, including the importance of respect for others online including when we are anonymous.
• To know how to critically consider their online friendships and sources of information including awareness of the risks associated with people they have never met.
• To know that the internet can also be a negative place where online abuse, trolling, bullying and harassment can take place, which can have a negative impact on mental health.

Law and Order

• To know and understand the meaning of the following - democracy, sovereignty, dictatorship, government, monarchy.

U.N. Rights

• To learn about organisations such as the United Nations.
• To understand the importance and significance of equal rights.

Budgeting

• To learn about budgeting and what it means to budget.
• To understand why financial management and planning is important from a young age.

Consumer Sense

• To know and understand financial terms such as loan, interest, tax and discount.
• To make connections between their learning, the world of work and their future economic wellbeing.
• To show initiative and take responsibility for activities that develop enterprise capability.

Tough Topics

• Child labour.
• Female Genital Mutilation (FGM).
• Knife crime.
• Peer-on-peer abuse.
• Self-harm.
• Body positivity.