DCU’s Graduate Diploma in SPHE/RSE - underpinned by a rights-based and inclusive approach.Ep 6, Kay Maunsell & Leanne Coll

Louise is joined by Drs Kay Maunsell and Leanne Coll who, with their DCU colleagues, deliver a ground breaking Graduate Diploma in SPHE/RSE.

The students are experienced secondary school teachers from across the country and they are the first group to study on the programme which is the only specialist teacher development programme of its kind at post primary level in Ireland.

Leanne and Kay tell Louise it is underpinned by a rights-based and inclusive approach and they discuss how sex education has changed since Louise was in secondary school!

One of the students on the programme – Galway teacher Annemarie Browne – shares her experience and how she wants her students to have a positive experience of SPHE/RSE.

Louise also hears that the future for quality comprehensive sexuality education is looking good.

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Louise:
Hello, and welcome to the Teachers Inspire Podcast. I'm Louise O'Neill and I curate Teachers Inspire which is organised and run by Dublin City University.

We want to hear about the teacher who has made a difference in your life or in your child's life. So remember you can nominate them now for an award at teachersinspire.ie

On the podcast I talk to some of the amazing teachers and the people who nominated them. I also chat to other people who share their fascinating stories about teaching and teachers with me.

Now I'm going to talk to two people who, together with a dedicated group of their colleagues have put so much time, energy and passion into creating what has become a groundbreaking postgraduate course in the DCU Institute of Education which is supported through funding from the Department of Education.

Doctors Kay Maunsell and Leanne Coll with their DCU colleagues are currently delivering the Graduate Diploma in SPHE/RSE to over 30 secondary school teachers from across the country. And they are the first group to study on the programme.

And it is the only specialist teacher development programme of its kind at post primary level in Ireland. It's underpinned by a rights-based and inclusive approach to SPHE/RSE.

The programme not only builds teachers' expertise, enabling them to meet the needs of young people but it supports the development of leaders in SPHE/RSE now and into the future. And they join me now in studio. Welcome to Teachers Inspire!

Leanne & Kay:
Thanks so much.

[laughter]

Louise:
So, do you want to tell me about like the genesis for this graduate diploma, and what you think it's contributing to post primary education?

Kay:
Thanks so much, Louise, for that lovely introduction. The genesis for the programme has, if you like a very long history, you know, when SPHE and in fact earlier RSE, were becoming part of the curriculum over 20 years ago, there was a parallel call for a new curriculum in the field, but also always, teacher professional development.

So it was, you know, the message going out now is that you cannot have curriculum development without teacher professional development aligned with that.

And in the intervening 20-25 years, we've, we have, nationally here in Ireland a growing research evidence base around the need for teachers to have particular qualifications, specialist qualifications in this field, to enhance their competence, their comfortability, and their confidence overall.

And not only do we have that evidence from teachers but we also have young people calling for their teachers to have, you know, a comfort in the teaching of this. And often the call, therefore, is for additional teacher education or teacher professional development in the field and we're not alone in Ireland in that, that call is an international call for increased provision in relation to social personal and health education and particularly relationships and sexuality education at all levels of teacher education.

Louise:
I mean, when I was in Leaving Cert, which was 2003, we'd never had sex education in school. We had this kind of like…I'm trying to.. it was almost like a troupe of travelling players is the only way I could describe them, that came in and sort of did these little performances about like the importance of staying chaste until marriage, that was definitely, you know, one of those things about like, you know, the more sex you have the sort of the less, you know like, you're kind of devaluing yourself before marriage. I mean, again, it was 2003 and Leaving Cert, so that ship had sailed for most of the people in that room.

[laughter]

But like, I'd love to know, like, I mean, how have things shifted since then? And presumably, your work is really the backbone of that.

Leanne:
Yeah, I think what you're describing is probably the Horrible Histories of curriculum area and it's funny like doing this work with young people and with teachers, everyone has one of those stories.

And so that's why it's this programme and I'm so proud to be a part of it, working with Kay and the group, the team that we have in DCU and it's just, it's, you know, it's a shift from that ad hoc, often it's not teachers, it's it's outsiders coming into schools delivering things.

So this is really, the programme really is addressing that gap of building expertise, recognising that teachers are the right people to be doing this work in collaboration with young people, that they know the young people that they're working with.

You talk about sexuality education and like the curriculum in Ireland, obviously being we have social personal health education and relationships and sexuality education.

So that RSE now sits within SPHE. It has a framework, it's scaffolded learning, it's a build. It's not like they're just getting that once off lesson now, it’s comprehensive.

Louise:
Yeah.

Leanne:
And with that brings opportunities for whole school approaches, whereby all school leadership and staff are supporting the work that takes place in the classroom, so that young people don't see it as this ‘horrible history’ that happens for that 10-15 minutes in the classroom space that a lot of us come from that feeling not so great about ourselves, not so great about things like sexuality - if you're looking at sexuality education specific.

So it's, we're just at, it's just such a great moment I think in Ireland now that we have the programme, but also like the reimagined curriculum, which if you look at the consultation process for the curriculum design, young people were at the heart and centre of that, too.

So the voices, like yourself in 2003, we now have young people who are actually leading us in what we're doing.

Louise:
Amazing. Thank you, Leanne. So I suppose I'll put this to you Kay… I mean, at the beginning, in the intro, I said that this programme will be underpinned by a rights based and inclusive approach to sexuality education. Why do you think that's so important?

Kay:
Well we know from a rich research or evidence base that quality or comprehensive sexuality education is based on, I suppose, provision for young people in terms of meeting their needs.

So young people have a right to comprehensive and inclusive and high quality relationships and sexuality education embedded within the broader social, personal and health education that we offer here in Ireland.

I was part of an Irish Research Council research project, I led it out, called Teach RSE and in that research, we, you know, what we found was that there is an appetite amongst student teachers, who were part of the research as well as teacher educators and so on, to actually meet the rights of young people, to meet the needs and respond to the needs of young people in this way. So, an evidence based principle, rights based principle, young people having the right to a quality education in this area and then in terms of inclusivity Leanne -

Leanne:
absolutely Kay because the two are very much interlinked. So, you're like, young people have the right to this but also it's all young people have the right for it to meet their diverse needs as well and that's where the kind of principle of inclusivity is really important as an underpinning principle, (and) not something that's an ‘add on.’

It's, kind of underpinning everything. So we approach everything, be it healthy eating, be it body image, be it looking at consent… we’re approaching it from a diversity of peoples’ lived and everyday experiences.

It's not the fact we teach it this way and then we'll 'add on' inclusivity into the mix, it is that (inclusivity) that's a really important starting point.

And young people over and over in the research like, both myself the research that I've done working with young people around reimagining and transforming sexuality education, they tell us over and over that it must meet their diverse needs and contemporary needs around this.

Louise:
and when you say diverse are we talking gender, sexuality, race, like ability?

Leanne:
Everything…we work… like look at the diversity of everyday life, like RSE, take RSE as an example, RSE is everywhere. It's not just in the school, in the, in the classroom. We learn about gender, we learn about sexuality, we learn about race and class in our everyday life. So we're not coming in as empty vessels into this, we're coming in as lived human beings.

Louise:
of course.

Leanne:
And it's kind of, that's part of affirming young people's identities in the process rather than them feeling… so for example, if you take queer young people and the research around queer young people, like, I always kind of talk about, there's a research paper from Australia, I think it's probably nearly 20 years old now but queer young people talking about sexuality as useful as a chocolate kettle. So it is not meeting their needs. You can't imagine tea, you can't really make it in a chocolate kettle, you know that kind of way.

[laughter]

So it's this idea that it's, it's recognising that from the starting point, not when we get to the end of the semester and then we'll talk about queer identities and the spaces that queer identities exist. So everything that we are going to do is going to actually meet the diverse needs of the young people that we work with.

Louise:
Oh my god, it's great. And now I think we might invite you in Annemarie, so we're going to hear from one of the teachers on the course. So joining us now is Annemarie Browne, who teaches SPHE/RSE in Galway. Hi Annemarie.

Annemarie:
Hi, Louise, it's lovely to join you.

Louise:
Thank you so much. So I suppose my first question has to be why you wanted to participate in this course?

Annemarie:
Yeah, I'm teaching SPHE/RSE in Galway and like so many SPHE teachers around the country I was delighted with the introduction and the rollout of the new Junior Cert curriculum this year for all the reasons that Kay and Leanne have outlined there.

It's evidence based, it's meeting the new needs of our students, it's age appropriate and it's strengths based. And in order to kind of increase my competencies, skills and leadership capacities in SPHE/RSE I wanted to apply for the programme and to bring those skills back into the classroom and back into the department and back into our school and also back into the community at a community level because, as we're bringing these topics up in classrooms, they are being discussed in families and filtering back to the wider community, which is really positive.

And listening to your introduction, Louise, I suppose I want to increase the opportunity for young people to have a positive experience of SPHE/RSE and not to be recalling those, as Leanne called them very appropriately, horrible histories.

So I was delighted when, I must say I was really, really pleased when I was offered a place on the course. And really, I'm really pleased to be part of what is a wonderful group of students. There's just over 30 of us on the course. And it's a really great bunch.

Louise:
So I suppose what do you think, as a result of this graduate diploma that you're going to be able to bring back to the classroom that will really benefit your students?

Annemarie:
Well, I suppose, again, it's what Leanne and Kay have described there, I think if we trust the evidence, if we trust the best practice, if we trust ourselves, the students and our communities, that it'll yield great benefits.

And the methodologies that we're learning on the course are very imaginative and very creative and they afford great opportunities for small group work and peer-to-peer learning, which is very powerful, and promote self-efficacy. So I think all of those things will yield great benefits for the students in our classrooms.

Louise:
What do you think, like of all the things that you've learnt in the course, is there anything that kind of stood out to you as particularly interesting, or…

Annemarie:
I think what's standing out to me is that everything we're learning is really useful and really applicable and if I can just make a few points about that… So first of all, and it was mentioned already, that every topic that we're encountering is coming from an approach that is evidence based. And that gives us great confidence as a group going back into our classrooms and our schools, that we're providing really good information to our students.

And then, the learning methodologies that we're learning, again, as I said, involve a lot of peer-to-peer learning, a lot of creativity and that's allowing the students to engage with themselves, to engage with each other, and really forming great connections between them, which is really positive.

Also, from each other, we're having an opportunity with, as I said, we have a class of thirty-two and they are really, really generous in terms of sharing methodologies, resources and supporting each other, and talking about what is working within the classroom, what's not working within the classroom.

And of course, I can't forget Leanne and Kay and all the other leaders on the course who are national and international experts and, you know, they're so generous in sharing with us best practices, methodologies, and listening to us, so you know, I can’t single any one thing out but we it's very useful and very applicable.

Louise:
That's, I mean, for you now Kay and Leanne, I mean, it must be so encouraging to hear that kind of feedback?

Leanne:
Yeah and I think as well, like, give credit to Annemarie and to the student group as well, these are highly experienced, you know, teachers in their own right and actually, I feel…I can't speak for you Kay but it's a collaborative process in terms of the learning we Annemarie and the group.

We're learning so much about the contextual detail/ things that are going on on the ground in the school, they're bringing that back in, there's a sharing of that, recognising that they're not just teachers (that) they're leaders, like we're talking about, like your horrible, we're talking about the Horrible Histories earlier, but we're working with a group of teachers who are looking beyond what's broken and they're building a new vision and a new future for SPHE and RSE and that proceeds, like curriculum development, that proceeds a lot of what we're doing in this.

So what…we're lucky enough to be able to work with that, rather than… it's not a top down approach, we're very much working in collaboration with the students as part of the program.

Louise:
Yeah and Kay, where do you think Ireland is in like, you know, in comparison to other countries across the world, are we sort of top of the list, bottom of the list, in the middle somewhere?

Kay:
a really good question. Louise, I think of old, we would have thought of ourselves, as you know, the backwaters in terms of particularly

Louise:
repression (laughs)

Kay:
relationships and sexuality education but more and more as we engage, you know, amongst the group of colleagues who are working on the programme, as we engage with international providers of similar type education elsewhere/abroad… we're finding that actually we are, we are, I suppose, being held up as an example -

Louise:
That’s great –

Kay:
as a template, like only this week, I've received a request around, you know, provision of the template for our programme from the United States from a colleague, somebody that works in this field in the US, because they're recognising that this is groundbreaking.

Louise:
Wow, that’s so exciting to be working in that…

Kay:
Those are the words that I think when we, when Leanne and I were preparing for this, like excited and hopeful. We are building, and together with Annemarie and with the future students on this programme, as we, as we grow with the programme, that we are building communities of practice in this area.

Louise:
Yeah.

Kay:
And I think we've a lot to be proud of.

Louise:
Yeah, and I suppose as a final question to both of you, and I'll start with you, Leanne, and let's end it on a positive note, what are your hopes for the SPHE/RSE post primary education in Ireland going forward?

Leanne:
I'm excited already. It's not a futures thing, working with the students I just, I just think there's so many positive things going on in school at the moment and I think what it’s about is affirming that and recognising the positives. Too often we talk about the problem of what's happening around SPHE and RSE.

I think we're at a time now we're recognising case studies of rich, meaningful work that's co-designed with young people in schools, that's supported by school leadership, that’s whole school approach, that's cross-curricular where you have people doing this work in their English and history classes because they recognise the importance and the applicability across the curriculum like SPHE/RSE really is that that fulcrum for everything that teachers and young people are doing..

Louise:
How would you apply it in English?

Leanne:
well think about the, for example, the literature texts that you have, like you think about the idea of relationship sexuality education, there is relationships within these texts -

Louise:
I did study English in University; I should have known that!

[laughter]

Leanne:
But like, the diversity of the topics that can arise, and it's an emergent thing and they can make links to, for example, I don't know, talking about consent in their SPHE classroom, and then looking at the characters that there may or may not recognise what consent isn't happening in an English text.

They're the kind of things that you can kind of bring in at a kind of cross curricular level or if you're looking at, say, menstruation and so on, you could look in you could, in a business class, look at the economics associated with menstruation and menstrual products.

Louise:
that’s fantastic.

Leanne:
You know, it's those kind of things that we're starting to recognise the cross curricular links between these things..

Louise:
and how about you Kay?

Kay:
Again, I think we have a very hopeful future. I think we have been through a process of review and consultation, in respect of the curriculum but it's bigger than the curriculum, you know. There's there's a shift, you know, a shifting, I suppose, cultural or social cultural dynamic within Ireland and I think we are certainly ready and have been working, have been building the, I suppose, the building blocks to ensure that our future generations have the quality, comprehensive sexuality education, and broader social person health education that is their right.

Louise
I have to say, I feel very hopeful after listening to both of you, and to you too Annemarie. So thank you so much to the three of you for joining me today.

Kay, Leanne & Annemarie:
Thanks so much. Thank you, Louise.

Louise:
Now remember, you can find out more about Teachers Inspire, you can nominate your teacher for the award and you can find links to other episodes of the podcast at teachersinspire.ie or you can listen wherever you get your podcasts. Until next time…