For the first time, children in Years 7-10 in NSW will learn how to navigate relations with sexual partners under mandatory curriculum changes.
Students as young as 12 will learn the “skills and strategies to gain, give or deny consent” under the new physical development, health and physical education (PDHPE) syllabus, released on Wednesday.
Under the previous curriculum, consent was an optional example of a topic teachers could discuss at their discretion.
Education Minister Prue Car said the topic would become an essential component of courses to be rolled out across all NSW classrooms by 2027.
“For the first time ever, there will be beefed up content and knowledge on affirmative consent,” she told reporters on Wednesday.
When asked whether religious schools would be on board with the latest syllabus, Car responded: “This is the curriculum and this is what we need taught in our schools.”
Age-appropriate lessons will teach that consent is “freely given, reversible, informed and specific” with communication strategies to focus on “respecting people’s choices, personal boundaries and affirmative consent”, the government said.
Respectful relationships will also form a major part of material with extra lessons on how to recognise signs of coercive control, manipulation and controlling behaviours in relationships.
Premier Chris Minns noted the curriculum changes accorded with recently amended sexual assault and consent laws for the state.
“When the law has changed, we need to make sure that young people in particular understand that the consequences as a result of those law changes are serious,” he said.
Sex education will adopt the legal definition of consent, including that it “must be actively communicated by words or actions by both parties” and can be revoked at any time.
It will also dictate that there can be no consent if the person is unconscious, asleep or affected by drugs and alcohol.
The education overhaul is part of a $77.6 million federal commitment announced earlier in July for public and non-government schools to deliver age-appropriate and evidence-based lessons on consent.
NSW will receive the bulk of the funding, with more than $25 million set aside for the state over five years.
The Albanese Government in May began a year-long, national consent campaign aimed at clearing up any lingering confusion about the issue.
The $40 million push is aimed at encouraging adults to check their own understanding about consent before they discuss it with each other and young people.
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