Primary Overview

Primary Overview

LGBT Inclusive Education refers to including themes related to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people across the school curriculum. It applies across ages and stages, from early level to senior phase. Learning will be differentiated and suitable for the age and stage of learners.

It is a national expectation that all teachers in Scotland will engage with the National Approach to LGBT Inclusive Education. This means completing the national CPD and including the LGBT Learning Themes in ordinary teaching and learning.

In primary schools, LGBT Inclusive Education will typically begin with discussions about diverse families, including storybooks that feature same-sex parents. Other important topics throughout primary are addressing prejudice and bullying, and challenging gender stereotypes. By later primary, learners should further develop their understanding that LGBT people are part of our society, through an introduction to LGBT rights, history and role models. This will be built upon at secondary school.

We have a variety of services and resources which can help teachers to get started with LGBT Inclusive Education in the classroom.

Our school services

With our expertise and experience working in schools across Scotland, we have identified this pathway as the most effective way to achieve meaningful impact.

  1. Key staff complete Stage 1 of national CPD

  2. Primary school learner workshops

  3. All staff complete Stage 1 of national CPD

  4. All staff complete Stage 2 of national CPD

  5. School action plan developed

  6. Learner workshops for new year groups

Our school services are designed address prejudice and improve outcomes for all learners. Our data shows that our workshops have strong outcomes, with 99% of learners saying they had a better understanding of prejudice, bullying and stereotypes. Visit Our Impact for the current data about our services.

We require key staff (including pastoral care, those facilitating the sessions, and any other staff school identified) to have completed at least Stage 1 of the national CPD before we deliver any learner workshops as we have found they are most impactful when staff are engaging with the national CPD and implementation of LGBT Inclusive Education.

Workshops

We offer primary school workshops from P5 to P7, adapted for the age and stage of learners.

For schools that would like their learners to complete all workshops, we recommend Equality & Difference for P5, followed by Challenging Homophobic Language and Challenging Gender Stereotypes for P6 and P7.

Equality & Difference: As learners grow and develop, they begin to notice the many ways in which they are all different. Sometimes, this awareness can lead to bullying. This workshop helps learners explore the concept of “difference” in a positive and educational way.

Challenging Gender Stereotypes: Primary school pupils are already beginning to notice, and be influenced by, messages about how boys and girls are “supposed” to act. This workshop helps learners explore and challenge the stereotypes they see around them.

Challenging Homophobic Language: This workshop challenges the use of the word ‘gay’ among young people to mean something inferior or bad. Research has shown this commonly starts in primary school.

To book our workshops and for more information, visit Primary Workshops.

Our resources

We produce curriculum materials for teachers delivering LGBT Inclusive Education that are ready to use and can also be easily adapted for the needs of learners. These resources also serve as examples of how LGBT Inclusive Education can look in different curricular areas, ages and stages for teachers who want to produce their own classroom materials.

Visit our Primary Resources page to view and download all of our available resources.

View Primary Resources

Primary teachers

For further information about the expectations for primary teachers, the national CPD and the LGBT Inclusive Education Implementation and Evaluation Toolkit, visit Teachers.

lgbteducation.scot

We manage lgbteducation.scot, the national platform for LGBT Inclusive Education on behalf of the Scottish Government. It hosts all quality approved resources, the national ‘Delivering LGBT Inclusive Education’ CPD, the LGBT Inclusive Education Implementation and Evaluation Toolkit and all current national guidance for this policy area.