Keeping Safe: Child Protection Curriculum Review

Hi there! Teaching Protective Behaviours is heavy going and needs to be at a slow and steady pace. The content is excellent but it takes weeks to implement thoroughly. The information is often heard by the students for the very first time, so it can be daunting and overwhelming for them. It would be great if you could include some happy, fun activities during and/or at the end of lessons to help teachers bring a lighter mood before moving on, rather than teachers just taking the kids out to sport or outdoor games.

I am a victim of child sexual abuse and I am passionate and dedicated to delivering this program to keep children safe. I have been teaching combined classes on behalf of other teachers for about four years now. Some of the content around abuse, touching, secrets etc can be daunting for some teachers and I do wonder if you could consider consultants who could help classroom teachers, who may be a new graduate or a victim themselves, deliver the program. Just a thought.
Thank you.

One of my main issues with the current document is the links provided usually don't work so when needing further assistance, I am unable to access it.

I would prefer that the term ' private body parts' were used instead of 'sexual body parts' as this has more meaning to our younger students, gives greater meaning for students who don't yet know what sex actually means, and our private body parts are not always used for sexual purposes.
I believe some upper primary students in my school have been triggered and become distressed following some of the lessons around physical and sexual abuse. I feel that defining abuse is not always necessary for a child to recognise when someone is making them uncomfortable, when behaviour is not appropriate or okay, or when they feel unsafe. I think that teaching the definitions of different types of abuse needs to be done in a more sensitive and safer space than a classroom, and it needs to be purposeful. I'm not sure that this part of the curriculum is going to achieve the goal that is intended and there is a risk of causing distress to students if lessons are delivered by inexperienced teaching staff, or without planning and a high degree of sensitivity.

Suggestion for the expansion of Mapping Tools to include SCASA (WA) & the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander curriculum to include WA elements please!
Also another suggestion to include a blank mapping document for secondary staff to map the curriculum to their respective elective learning areas which can significantly differ from school to school.

In Privacy and the body, section 1.2 Meaning of Private, the suggestion is to go to Hector's world as an online resource to talk about online safety. I feel that Hector's world is a bit to scary for children 3-5 years old.

From my experience working with teachers I find that when they are working with children with a higher need of support they run through the program once and then become unsure of what to do next when the students are not picking up the concepts. It would be good if we could include that like all learning we need to consider the Multi-Tiered System of Supports to ensure that the content is being understood and stored into long term memory. It is also important I think for teachers to know that repeating the program in a repetitious fashion (with some tweaks to maintain engagement) is not problematic if we have the data to show that they are possibly still not grasping the concepts and need to have a more intensive intervention.

Love the content and curriculum. Would love some resources suited for Aboriginal English / Kriol speakers in the Kimberley especially parent resources. Also site planning tools that work for special needs schools with rolling intake would be helpful.

I can't complete the survey as I can only see the disagree and unsure options. It cuts off the agree options.

Your survey did not provide enough information for participants to provide anecdotal or valuable qualitative data. A massive concern is young people accessing unmoderated or regulated sites such as Snap Chat and TikTok. Parents also want information on these dangerous social network platforms that have no accountability when harm is done to users. Cyber safety should be mandatory for all children, young people and staff accessing educational institutions. The extent to which consent is taught, needs be to also involve caregivers. From my experience, parents and caregivers want information about how to manage the online social lives and safety of their children and teens. Its one thing to teach the curriculum for child safety , but its another to follow it up externally. Safe Child, safe Young person, Safe Schools, Safe Families, Safe Communities and Safe Nation. It has to be addressed and backed up at all levels, otherwise the Keeping them Safe Curriculum, operates on its own. Child safety should be a community and national priority.

As someone who teaches at a Multi-Age Group (MAG) school, I feel that the content is very repetitive. There needs to be some differentiation between each year group, otherwise I'm literally teaching the same thing every year. The kids also pick up on the fact that it is the same activities they are repeating for 3-4 years, particularly in the Year 3-6 category.

It would be great if the suggested texts could be accessible online as every school library has different books and not all texts are available. If the resources were online they would be easily accessible for every child regardless of their school resourcing.