It Takes a Village: Partnerships in Primary School Relationships and Sexuality Education in Aotearoa

The implementation of relationships and sexuality education as part of Health and Physical Education in The New Zealand Curriculum (Ministry of Education, Ministry of Education. (2007). The New Zealand Curriculum. Learning Media Limited.) involves a range of people sharing their perspectives in order to shape the subject on paper and in practice. This paper presents the findings of a qualitative collective case study in three primary schools in Aotearoa. Experimenting with Appreciative Inquiry, we found that connections and conversations between a wide variety of people and organisations have a critical role to play in relation to planning and teaching relationships and sexuality education in schools: (i) Schools and teachers working in partnership with colleagues within and across schools, (ii) connections with whānau and relationships with learners, and (iii) access to wider supports and services. Our findings suggest that having conversations and establishing and maintaining productive partnerships between a variety of people are critical if relationships and sexuality education is to live up to its potential and meet learners’ needs.