Who is this template for?
This template is specifically designed for Headteachers, RSE leads, and Senior Leadership Teams (SLT) across primary, secondary, all-age schools, and Pupil Referral Units (PRUs) in Wales. Grounded in the statutory expectations of Curriculum for Wales and the mandatory RSE Code, it enables school leaders to audit their current RSE provision rigorously, establish a whole-school ethos of care and respect, and align practice directly with Estyn's latest thematic guidance and recommendations.
Why use this template?
- Ensures Direct Alignment with Estyn Guidance: Fully incorporates the key findings and recommendations from Estyn’s July 2026 thematic report, Developing respect and understanding, ensuring your self-evaluation is robust, self-aware, and inspection-ready.
- Embeds a Whole-School Ethos: Helps position RSE within a broader whole-school approach to emotional health, well-being, and safeguarding, ensuring it is integrated into daily school life rather than treated as an isolated subject.
- Secures 3–16 Curriculum Coherence and Progression: Supports leaders to move beyond checking topic coverage to planning progressive, age- and developmentally appropriate learning across Curriculum for Wales phases (Phase 1 from age 3, Phase 2 from age 7, and Phase 3 from age 11).
- Targeted Professional Learning: Pinpoints specific areas where staff require subject-specific pedagogical training, building confidence to address sensitive themes such as gender identity, consent, online misogyny, and the accurate use of terminology.
- Empowers Pupil Voice and Participation: Facilitates authentic engagement with pupils across year groups to co-construct learning, evaluate attitudes, and measure the real impact of RSE on their personal and social development.
- Promotes Proactive Community & Parental Engagement: Helps schools establish transparent, collaborative communication with parents, carers, and community leaders, dispelling misconceptions and building trust around RSE delivery.
- Maximises External Partnerships: Evaluates how effectively your setting collaborates with health professionals, police liaison officers, and third-sector partners to strengthen internal capacity and address contextual risks.
- Integrates RSE Across Areas of Learning and Experience (AoLEs): Encourages cross-curricular connections within the Health and Well-being AoLE, Humanities, and Language, Literacy and Communication to normalise respectful discussions across the school.
How does it work?
This template follows the standard, intuitive iAbacus process—moving seamlessly from reflection and evidence gathering to strategic action planning across four defined performance levels (Emerging, Developing, Secure, and Highly Effective). Practice is evaluated across ten core areas derived directly from Estyn's framework:
- Vision, ethos and the whole-school approach
- Use of evidence, self-evaluation and impact
- Pupil voice and participation
- Curriculum coherence and 3–16 progression
- Inclusion and representation
- Parental and community engagement
- Responding to emerging societal challenges
- Professional learning and staff confidence
- Partnerships and internal capacity
- Quality of teaching, learning and pupil outcomes
Gaining Strategic Insight
For Headteachers and SLT, iAbacus offers powerful comparative oversight across departments, year groups, or cluster schools. By using the 'Overlay' feature, a Headteacher can combine individual RSE evaluation abacuses completed by teachers or subject leads into a single master view. This generates an instant visual 'heat map' across the school, making it simple to identify common professional development needs (such as staff confidence in teaching sexuality education), pinpoint gaps in phase-to-phase progression, or highlight pockets of exemplary practice to share across the setting.
Clear, Professional Reporting
When preparing for external scrutiny, reporting to governors, or welcoming Estyn inspectors, iAbacus simplifies communication. In a single click, your completed self-evaluation exports into a polished, visually compelling PDF report. This provides inspectors with clear, transparent proof of your school's improvement strategy—demonstrating that every judgement is backed by rich evidence, diagnostic force-field analysis, and actionable next steps.
References / Source Material
How to Get Started
New to iAbacus? Discover how this template can support your improvement strategy. Book a personalised demo or start a free trial to explore the full platform. Visit www.iAbacus.com to learn more.
Already a subscriber? You can find this template in the template library within your iAbacus account. Simply log in, create a new abacus, and select it from the list to get started.
