Consent, Safety & Healthy Relationships

Evidence base

This is one of the most robustly evidenced competencies in the framework — but understanding what it is strong for matters. Comprehensive sexuality education (CSE) has strong evidence for proximal outcomes — knowledge, attitudes, contraceptive use — and good evidence for distal outcomes including delayed initiation and reduced STIs, particularly against abstinence-only comparators. Santelli et al. (2017) and UNESCO's International Technical Guidance on Sexuality Education (2018) consolidate this. The claim that sex education encourages early sexual activity is empirically false — the evidence consistently shows the opposite.

The most rigorous evidence comes from structured dating-violence prevention programmes with long-term behavioural outcome data. Safe Dates (Foshee et al., 1998, 2004) showed sustained reductions in physical and sexual dating-violence perpetration and victimisation up to four years out. Coaching Boys Into Men (Miller et al., 2012) is the best-evidenced male-targeted programme, showing reductions in abuse perpetration and increases in bystander behaviour. Fourth R (Wolfe et al., 2009) and Shifting Boundaries (Taylor et al., 2013) add building-level and multi-year evidence — the gold standard for what school-based relationship education can achieve.

Stand-alone consent education — a single session or talk — produces knowledge and attitude gains but rarely changes behaviour. Burton et al.'s (2023) systematic review of 18 programmes found mostly proximal outcomes, with few measuring actual victimisation or perpetration. The design implication: REAL School's approach uses a spiral curriculum beginning in primary with body autonomy and bystander skills, building toward explicit consent and healthy relationships in older bands — the structure both UNESCO and the PSHE Association recommend as evidence-based.

What the evidence supports

Spiral the curriculum — begin in primary with body autonomy and recognising unsafe touch, not with explicit consent framing; return to each theme across year groups with increasing depth. Use multi-session structured approaches, not one-off talks. Include bystander skills explicitly — students are more likely to intervene when they know how. Use approaches that address social norms and power dynamics directly, not just information transfer. Make it concrete and scenario-based; knowledge transfer alone does not change behaviour.

Caveats

One-off consent talks produce knowledge gains, not behaviour change — multi-session, whole-school approaches that address social norms directly are what affect victimisation and perpetration rates. This competency is politically contested but not empirically contested — the research evidence is consistent. Conflating proximal outcomes (knowledge, attitudes) with distal outcomes (behaviour, victimisation rates) is the persistent error; REAL School's aims should specify which they are targeting.

References

• Santelli, J. S., et al. (2017). Abstinence-only-until-marriage: An updated review of US policies and programs and their impact.
• UNESCO, UNAIDS, UNFPA, UNICEF, UN Women, & WHO. (2018). International technical guidance on sexuality education (revised ed.).
• Burton, O., et al. (2023). Teaching sexual consent to young people in education settings: A narrative systematic review.
• Foshee, V. A., et al. (1998). An evaluation of Safe Dates, an adolescent dating violence prevention program.
• Miller, E., et al. (2012). Coaching boys into men: A cluster-randomized controlled trial of a dating violence prevention program.
• Wolfe, D. A., et al. (2009). A school-based program to prevent adolescent dating violence: A cluster randomized trial.
• Taylor, B. G., et al. (2013). Shifting Boundaries: An experimental evaluation of a dating violence prevention program in middle schools.
• Foshee, V. A., et al. (2004). Assessing the long-term effects of the Safe Dates program.