Graduate Diploma in Social, Personal and Health Education/Relationships and Sexuality Education

Transformative Leadership in SPHE/RSE 

The aims of this module are threefold: Firstly, to support the development of participants’ knowledge, dispositions and skills for transformative leadership in the field of SPHE/RSE, and their viewing of other educational stakeholders as partners-in-process. Building teachers’ capacity through connection enhances not only the wellbeing and empowerment of teachers themselves, but has a positive impact at wider systems levels (Hargreaves and O’Connor, 2018; Hargreaves and Shirley, 2018). Secondly, the module aims to bring participants towards a critical social and cultural analysis of worldviews through reflection on diverse socio-cultural practices, expressions and norms. The module is grounded in a multi-disciplinary perspective, building on inter alia the insights of the Disciplines of Education (History, Philosophy,

Psychology, Sociology) as they relate to the curricular area of SPHE/RSE and within its context of Wellbeing (cf. Freire, 1970, 1998; Giroux, 2020; hooks, 1994). And thirdly, the module aims to broaden participants’ perspectives based on international research, best practice and positive solutions to challenges in the context of teaching and learning and/or of relationships with wider educational stakeholders, including inter alia their school’s culture/ethos, their students’ families, and wider communities. The overall rationale for this module recognises that teaching and learning does not happen in isolation. It emphasises the value in relation to teacher wellbeing of participants’ building and sustaining relationships within their own educational contexts and with key educational stakeholders across the wider educational community. The module will explore with participants, their transformative potential as agents and leaders of change within their educational settings and wider communities, acknowledging the possibilities, the sensitivities and the challenges associated with such change leadership.

On successful completion of this module the learner will be able to:

• Explore and evaluate the influence of socio-historical and legal contexts on educational settings’ cultures/ethos and their evolution and experience across diverse educational settings.
• Evaluate a range of theoretical approaches, scholarship and practices pertaining to SPHE/RSE and the contemporary influence of the Foundation Disciplines on the evolution of SPHE/RSE as a curriculum and apply their learning to their own professional contexts.
• Explore the potential of dialogical and relational pedagogies and approaches and their application across diverse educational contexts with emphasis on contested spaces through the use of case-study/scenario-based approaches and creative, arts-based media such as online material and social media popular in youth culture.
• Critically reflect on and analyse their educational setting’s culture/ethos, the socio-cultural contexts within which they engage and live out their relationships and on the wider societal values and norms and their application to SPHE/RSE.
•  Identify a range of internal and external stakeholders relevant to their educational setting and critically analyse the contributions, positive and negative, such stakeholders can make to their teaching of SPHE/RSE and to their wellbeing, more generally.
• Critically reflect on the salience of fostering meaningful and collaborative relationships with students and their families, schools and wider communities and external stakeholders in education and health, recognising the particular rights and interests of parents/families as defined in the Irish Constitution.
• Explore and model a range of dispositions and skills in addressing sensitivities and challenges in relation to transformative leadership within their educational settings, with families and across wider communities.
• Demonstrate transformative leadership through identifying recommendations for change, with due consideration of their educational setting’s culture/context.

Professional Practice & Partnerships in SPHE/RSE 

This year-long module will act as a fulcrum for participants' learning by providing scaffolded support for reflection on the integration of theory-practice and opportunities for participants to contextualise their learning from other taught modules on this programme. This module will seek to utilise, advance and integrate the existing skills and knowledge base that teachers of SPHE/RSE will bring to the classroom. Participants will receive formative feedback on their learning from experienced educators and peers. They will be supported to work collaboratively through Professional Learning Communities (PLC) which will help to scaffold leadership skills needed for collaborative practice in SPHE/RSE within/beyond their own school communities. 

Module aims: 

• To develop teachers’ skills in becoming effective, responsive and confident teachers of SPHE/RSE. 

• To support participants to continually advance their professional practice from a holistic and systemic perspective, understanding their role as a skilled SPHE/RSE teacher but also leaders of SPHE/RSE within their schools and communities. 

• To develop a critical inquiry perspective, allowing participants to creatively audit, map and respond to the needs of key educational stakeholders (including young people and parents) in their school contexts. 

• To provide opportunities for participants to critically reflect on their evolving practice, its strengths, its challenges and links to the current body of literature on contemporary approaches to SPHE/RSE.

On successful completion of this module the learner will be able to:

• Demonstrate an understanding of the unique role of the teacher as professional in responding to the complex and intricate nature of teaching, learning, professional issues in SPHE/RSE.
• Critically reflect on their evolving practice, its strengths, its challenges and links to the current body of research and evidence on high quality SPHE/RSE.
• Demonstrate an understanding of the importance of sharing professional learning in a collegial manner to support and enhance teaching and learning.
• Demonstrate an understanding of necessary skills needed for collaborative practice and leadership in SPHE/RSE at a whole school level.
• Audit and map the needs of key educational stakeholders (including young people and parents) in their school contexts.
• Create bespoke learning programmes and initiatives that are responsive to the needs of young people and their school contexts.

Curriculum, Pedagogy & Assessment in SPHE/RSE 

This module will provide opportunities for participants to explore what it means to create and maintain a safe, inclusive and empowering SPHE-RSE learning  environment; one that is relevant and responsive to the needs of young people. Critical, creative, transformative and co-productive approaches to teaching, learning and assessment in SPHE/RSE at post-primary level will be actively modelled. Participants will be supported to enhance their own teaching and learning skills in their engagement with active and participatory pedagogical approaches through peer micro-teaching opportunities. These important peer micro-teaching opportunities will support participants as they develop their competence in research driven approaches to teaching, learning and assessment in SPHE/RSE. Through their active engagement in this module participants will be enabled to respond to the unique strengths, needs and interests of post-primary students. The module is also designed to enhance participant’s capacities as critical and creative consumers of evidence-based approaches to teaching, learning and assessment in SPHE/RSE. This module aims to facilitate participants’ critical understanding of how their practice meets educational policy and curricular framework requirements, (current and evolving) for Junior and Senior Cycle, and in turn, explore alignment with relevant international guidance and standards.

On successful completion of this module the learner will be able to:

• Demonstrate their knowledge of current and evolving curriculum and evidence-based approaches to teaching, learning and assessment of SPHE/RSE at post-primary level.
• Enhance their confidence and capacity to plan for and facilitate student-centred learning experiences using participative and experiential learning strategies.
• Enhance their capacity of becoming a reflective practitioner and the concept of life-long learning.
• Identify the interconnectivity between policy, theory, curriculum and praxis.
• Develop an understanding of the theories that underpin curriculum development and how they can be employed in the co-construction of SPHE-RSE curriculum with young people.
• Develop skills as flexible, critical and creative curriculum makers, responsive to curricular changes and evolutions.

Transformative Leadership in SPHE/RSE: Building Connections Across Diverse Contexts

This module’s rationale is to support students to deepen their knowledge and understanding of young people’s unique capacities and needs in relation to their learning in SPHE/RSE. Students will critically consider the role of inclusive,  participatory, rights-based and creative approaches to SPHE/RSE and their role in supporting participants to be knowledgeable, informed, reflective teachers of SPHE/RSE. The module will enhance students’ understanding of young people’s social and emotional development, with particular focus on their identity, relationships, gender, sexual orientation, and mental health and wellbeing. Students will be supported to enhance their understanding of the value and role of the student voice in co-constructing learning in SPHE/RSE. Thus, equipping and empowering participants with the knowledge and skills to handle the theoretical and empirical complexity of young people’s learning needs and integrate this into their teaching practice. The overall aims of this module will be achieved through the further development of students’:

• knowledge and understanding of young people’s identity and social and emotional development and critical reflection on their attitudes and values in relation to young people’s learning needs and apply this to their classroom and whole school context.
• understanding and critical awareness of contemporary theory and research on the role of young people as key educational stakeholders in SPHE/RSE
• understanding and analysis of a rights-based approach and apply this to their own teaching contexts.
• understanding of the value and role of the young person’s voice in co-constructing learning in SPHE/RSE

On completion of this module participants will be able to teach, and become leaders in the teaching of SPHE/RSE through developing their knowledge, understanding, research literacy, skills, and attitudes, thus enabling their critical reflection on young people’s development and wellbeing.

On successful completion of this module the learner will be able to:

• Demonstrate a systematic understanding of the contexts and domains of young people’s social and emotional development with particular focus on their identity, relationships, gender, sexual orientation, and mental health and wellbeing.
• Demonstrate understanding of how legislation, policy, practices, pedagogies and curriculum shape young people’s experiences of SPHE/RSE.
• Show a critical awareness of the current challenges, controversies, and complexities in the fields of well-being, development, and the rights of the young person.
• Apply their knowledge and understanding of young people’s learning needs, wellbeing and development to their teaching and engagement with young people in the SPHE/RSE space.
• Use their knowledge and understanding to support their students’ voice to be autonomous and empowered in their decision-making around identity development, and relationships and through inter alia examination of the value and role of the young person’s voice in co-constructing learning in SPHE/RSE.
• Be enablers of children’s and young people’s rights through their teaching of SPHE/RSE.
• Use critical research literacy skills to handle the complexity of the current state of research and
• scholarship in the field and to ensure their understanding and practice in SPHE/RSE is empirically based.

Teacher Identity 

This module’s rationale is to provide participants with space and structures within which to explore their personal and personally- professional development. Self-awareness, confidence, comfort, criticality and self-efficacy are known foundations of being effective SPHE/RSE teachers (UNESCO, 2021/WHO, 2017) and of inclusive teaching (GEMR, 2020/EADSNE, 2012).

Participating teachers will consider their own identity-formation and ongoing evolution/wellbeing while building their competence as agentic, assured professionals equipped to navigate inclusive implementation-of and leadership-in SPHE/RSE. Reflection in/on attitudes, values, feelings and experiences in the construction and enactment of SPHE/RSE are an important part of the journey to being knowledgeably robust, agile practitioners/leaders. Identity exploration is a foundation for teacher/leader(s) who can acknowledge and embrace the change/uncertainty/challenge that are predictable eventualities/opportunities within SPHE/RSE. Attuning to their own personal and teacher voices/views is integral to preparation for listening to and hearing, as well as advocating for, the diverse young people with whom participants work to co-construct valuable education for living healthy, fulfilling lives.

Aims of Module are to: 

• Develop awareness of and personally-professional reflection on participants’ own attitudes, values, feelings, biases and experiences considering intersections/separations of these within one’s professional role as SPHE/RSE teacher; 
• Enable critical-reflection on the role of societal values and norms (e.g. gender/ability/sexuality/race/ethnicity/social-class/religious-belief/language norms/expectations) in SPHE/RSE; 
• Build knowledge and skills in the four core values of inclusive-teaching to enhance confidence for being diversity aware/responsive; 
• Develop confidence for integrating theory, research and practice knowledge in context; 
• Build change-readiness to sustain participants’ wellbeing throughout curriculum comprehensiveness and developments; 
• Foster culture of dialogue/relationship among teachers as they develop competence for sustaining ongoing connections/communities of learning/teaching/leading/advocacy in SPHE/RSE.

On successful completion of this module the learner will be able to:

• Explicate awareness of their own attitudes, beliefs, values, feelings, biases and experiences and the relevance of these in context as teachers of SPHE/RSE.
• Deliberate their roles as agents in collaborative practice/leadership for SPHE/RSE in schools.
• Appreciate the centrality of their relationships: with selves, with each other; with young people, with whole-school community; with parents/carers and with other education partners in enacting SPHE/RSE curriculum and hidden curriculum.
• Use personal and critical reflexivity to apply integrated knowledge of theory, research and practice findings to engage comfortably in SPHE/RSE with young people and with other education partners in SPHE/RSE.
• Explain the salience of student voice and harvest their experiences of co-constructing learning in SPHE/RSE for implications arising from the complexities/challenges of these lived realities.
• Illustrate the meaning of inclusive-teaching drawing on examples of their experiences in navigating inclusivity (and the uncertainty this requires) within current curriculum specifications and guidance for teaching/leading SPHE/RSE.
• Demonstrate capacity for integrating/separating their personal positionalities in their professional roles as SPHE/RSE teachers/leaders/advocates.
• Articulate their analysis of the impact that societal/cultural values and norms can have on educators, on young people, on parents/carers and on other partners in terms of expectations, challenges and implications for SPHE/RSE.
• Locate themselves within current SPHE/RSE developments and implications for them within historic and policy contexts in Ireland and elsewhere.
• Synopsise and articulate their identity/ies as SPHE/RSE teacher, at a point in time, incorporating theoretical, policy, research and experiential journey events to date

The Graduate Diploma in Social, Personal and Health Education/Relationships and Sexuality Education is an innovative, one-year, part-time NFQ Level 9 postgraduate programme. It is a first-of-its kind course in Ireland, addressing the gap in teacher education provision in SPHE/RSE.

• DCU’s Graduate Diploma in Social, Personal and Health Education/Relationships and Sexuality Education (SPHE/RSE) is a course for post-primary school teachers

• The new SPHE  post-primary    specifications,    which    are    available    on    curriculumonline.ie, include elements that are designed to support young    people    to    understand    issues    of    consent,    to    have    respect    for    themselves    and    others,    to    appreciate    the    risks    and    negative    impacts  of    pornography    and    to    navigate    today’s    world    safely

• The Graduate Diploma is designed to help post-primary teachers and    schools    in    the    provision    of    the    new    SPHE/RSE    curriculum    for    junior cycle and senior cycle students

• This programme  is  funded by  the Department of    Education (DoE)  to supplement teacher education provision in SPHE/RSE and it is the first programme of    its    kind    at    post-primary  level  in   Ireland

• The    topics    covered    in    the    Graduate    Diploma    include    mental  health    and    wellbeing,    consent,    respect    and    relationships,  equipping    teachers    to    deliver    the    curriculum    in    a    sensitive,  age-appropriate manner

• Supporting    students    and    safeguarding    their    wellbeing    are    teachers’    number    one    priority,    providing    a    safe    space    for    students

• The materials for the course are designed to help teachers do this, to support their understanding and to prepare them for the types of    questions    they    will    be    asked    by    students

• The enhancement    and    upskilling    of    teachers’    knowledge has the potential to effect lasting positive change for teachers,theirschools, the young people they are teaching and their families and communities

• Teachers    participating    in    the    programme    will    be    involved    in    critical exploration of resources and content related to SPHE and RSE, including examples used internationally as well as material accessed    by    children    and    young    adults    directly.    As    such,    these    materials    are    provided    to    them    as    adults    and    no    graphic    or    explicit    material is for use in a classroom setting

“When I went back to school and those tough conversations came up, I was much better equipped, and I was much more comfortable.” 

Emma, Post-Primary Teacher, Dublin

“The new SPHE curriculum is excellent and provides excellent learning opportunities for students to learn about themselves and how to navigate the modern world. The DCU course is the first teacher training course in the area of SPHE and RSE in Ireland to fully support teachers in the delivery of this often sensitive yet highly necessary curriculum.” 

Pam, Post-Primary Teacher, Cork

“I feel really confident, standing in front of a class and hosting a dialogue between the kids themselves that is respectful, but also honest and true to their diverse range of views.” 

Courtney, Post-Primary Teacher, Wicklow

Download our SPHE factsheet (PDF)