What is Respectful Relationships? 

The Royal Commission into Family Violence identified the critical role that schools have in creating a culture of respect, aiming to change Australia’s story of family violence for future generations.  In 2016, respectful relationships education became a core component of the Victorian Curriculum.  

Respectful relationships education focuses on building and promoting gender equity in relationships and challenging gender stereotypes.  Teaching and learning about respectful relationships is an essential part of a whole school approach to the prevention of gender-based violence.

In 2017, Buckley Park College was selected as a lead school to implement this whole school approach.  Our vision was to strengthen our culture of respect and equality across the school, with the aim this would filter out into the entire community via our students. Our efforts have been acknowledged and we have been accepted to continue this work as a lead school in 2020.  

Over our journey we have embedded curriculum material across a number of subjects, established a strong working party to drive this work, conducted whole staff training on key messages, established a student voice group, led several partner schools to implement respectful relationships within their schools, hosted a number of student forums facilitated by our students, developed policy to support this work and our journey continues. 

At Buckley Park College we see the importance of this work and how implementation of this content will assist our students to be a part of creating genuine and lasting change so that every child has the opportunity to achieve their full potential.​