This blog is written by one of our Reimagining RSE trailblazers, a group of educators and practitioners working with us to explore what a safe uncertainty approach looks like in practice. Across different settings, they are testing, adapting and reflecting on ways of creating more dialogic, responsive and relational forms of RSE.
In this piece, Anna from Split Banana reflects on a familiar pedagogical challenge: how to make scenarios feel relevant without reducing complex relational situations to simplified ‘right answers.’ Drawing on her practice, Anna offers a compelling example of how shifting from pre-scripted scenarios to more open, co-constructed approaches can create space for richer ethical engagement and more meaningful discussion with young people.
Last January, I delivered an activity on bystander intervention to two Year 12 classes. We explored the framework of the very helpful 5 Ds of upstanding – direct, delegate, document, distract and delay – and used scenarios to help students apply and discuss each approach. One example was something like:
Mo was in a group chat with friends where they usually shared memes, TikToks and random videos. One day, Jaz started posting sexist jokes about girls at college and shared a link to a Telegram group where people were sharing leaked nudes and rating them.
We ran the same activity with two different groups and received very different feedback:
“Thanks. The scenarios helped me think about what I might do.”
Year 12 participant
“These scenarios are way too young for us. Irrelevant.”
Year 12 participant
It raised questions I thought about often: how do we make sure our work is pitched appropriately? How do we keep it relevant? And, as someone now around fifteen years older than the students in front of me, how do we avoid sounding completely cringe while still being honest and useful?
I used to think the answer lay in more consultation with young people in order to make our content feel more current. Of course, this is important and necessary and something we do a lot through our Youth Advisory Group.
However, after that session and reflecting on what it means to take a safe uncertainty approach to facilitating RSE, something else started to niggle at me. Maybe the issue wasn’t simply that the scenarios are outdated or unrealistic.
Maybe, it’s that scenarios themselves are built on our assumptions about what young people need to learn: they are shaped by what we think they should know/ take away/ conclude from a session. Also, that their structure and application imply a pretty clear “right” answer and a “wrong” answer.
Students know what they are supposed to say:
“I’d speak to the friend”
“I’d report it”
These are important and appropriate responses that contribute to addressing abuse and preventing harm —but knowing the “right” answer doesn’t mean we’ll act on it.
This approach risks treating behaviour as something driven purely by knowledge, as if once students know what they should do, they will do it. Whereas when talking to a friend about their behaviour can be hard for many reasons. Similarly, reporting can feel like a dead end or require a high level of advocacy to see any action taken.
If we are not careful with our follow up questions and discussion, we can end up presenting very complex relational situations with a level of fact, simplicity and certainty. We know that this isn’t necessarily how young people will experience life, which means we’re ultimately doing them a disservice.
A different approach
A new approach to our scenario emerged the following summer in a conversation with facilitator Tilly Bungard about collaborating on illustrations for our workshops. I then tested this approach in a small, voluntary sex and relationships session with 17-year-olds in Cambridge.
It is worth noting that participation in this voluntary session was entirely female, raising questions – beyond the scope of this piece – about who feels able or motivated to opt into spaces that invite open exploration of sexual and relational experiences, and what this might suggest about how such topics are currently framed, invited, or received across different groups.
In the session, instead of giving them a written scenario, I showed them an incredibly basic, vague drawing of two blob-like people looking kind of emotionally ambiguous and said:
“Two people have had a sexual experience which has left one of them feeling sad. Nothing illegal has occurred. What happened?”
The group created their own story.
They imagined a heterosexual relationship where one person had orgasmed and the other had not. She became angry. He felt embarrassed and upset.
This kind of blew me away. The ensuing discussion was rich, nuanced and emotionally complicated. It was not a scenario I would have written myself for a one-off group of students who did not know each other very well.
But it was exactly what they wanted (and needed) to talk about.
Moving beyond the certainty of law and morality
Because the scenario was created by the students, we were able to explore questions that mattered to them and what they were already trying to figure out, rather than on preconceived objectives like understanding the law or moral ideas of right and wrong.
In ninety minutes I was able to facilitate conversations such as:
Why might someone respond with anger?
What social scripts were influencing the interaction?
How might reactions like that affect someone else?
What does fairness look like in sexual experiences?
How can gender expectations influence pleasure?
Are the same scripts present in non-heterosexual relationships?
These questions are hard and without clear right or wrong answers. Instead, they invite us into sexual ethics: the principles and values that shape how people think about and act in sexual relationships.
From there, I could draw on my expertise as an RSE educator to offer possible interpretations, suggest responses, or highlight where certain social scripts might be shaping what we’re seeing.
The feedback from this session was overwhelmingly positive, not about “now I know what to do”, but about having space to talk openly about difficult questions.
Responding to what’s in the room
We later collaborated with Tilly to create a series of emotive, ambiguous – and much better – illustrations for different age groups.
For a Year 8 workshop, we used an image of one young person looking at a phone while several others reacting around them.
I asked three questions:
“What happened?”
“How is everyone responding?”
“What happens next?”
As I walked around the classroom I heard a huge range of answers:
Someone had been sent a nude image
Someone had been insulted in a group chat
Someone had shared an image of a teacher online
Someone was being threatened with their images being shared unless they paid money
I stopped when I heard this final one. This thirteen-year-old was talking about sextortion, something that many would deem inappropriate to include in a session for this age group.
After naming this form of image-based abuse, I asked whether they thought the person would tell an adult. They said no.
Why?
Because they had “done something wrong” by sending an image in the first place. They knew they shouldn’t have done it but they did it anyway, so they would get into trouble.
That response opened up a vital conversation. When people experience image-based abuse, why do they so often feel it is their fault? If someone has done something they’ve been told is “wrong”, how does that shape whether they feel able to ask for help? Who benefits when shame or fear keeps people silent? What could adults do differently?
Again, we were able to explore their real anxieties and the consequences they associate with these situations. Young people need opportunities to rehearse difficult scenarios, think through options and explore what they might do when something frightening or confusing happens.
Modelling uncertainty
At the end of the session, one anonymous feedback slip asked a question we get in so many workshops:
“What do I do if I’ve reported but the teachers haven’t done anything?”
The feedback did not explicitly say what they had reported – whether it was image based abuse or otherwise. But, I put it to the class and asked what advice they might give, even without knowing the specific context. They knew the “correct” answers – such as talking to a friend, calling a helpline, speaking to another trusted adult – but in practice they reflected that these don’t always help or result in change.
Which reflects a difficult but often real experience.
There is no perfect answer or magic solution because the pervasiveness of harmful sexual behaviour and our ongoing difficulty in addressing it as a society is not the result of a single factor. It cannot be explained by a simple knowledge gap, whether about sexual assault laws, the difference between acceptable and unacceptable behaviour, or the influence of pornography.
As adults, acknowledging and sitting with that reality, rather than trying to tidy it away or pretend otherwise, is a valuable part of the learning in itself.
Safe uncertainty in practice
Under rigid ideas of what is “age appropriate”, many of these conversations would not happen.
But a safe uncertainty approach shows the value of opening dialogue rather than shutting it down. With skilled facilitation, ambiguity can be productive. It allows young people to bring their real concerns into the room so they can be safely looked at, explored and processed.
That said, if an over-reliance on fixed frameworks can reflect a more certain approach, simply leaving space for nuance without processing the underlying issues can tip into a passive uncertain response that leaves students feeling more aware of the difficulties yet disempowered to act, or despondent at the scale of the problems.
Which is why we’ve found the facilitation resources, such as these, from Reimagining RSE so useful:
| Statement | Safe uncertainty response | What not to say |
| “If you don’t want your nudes leaked, don’t share them.” | “It’s true that sharing intimate photos comes with risks, but that doesn’t mean people should automatically be blamed if their privacy is violated. How do you think consent and respect for boundaries factor into this? What does it mean to take responsibility for protecting your privacy while also considering the responsibility of others to respect it? How can we talk about online safety in a way that empowers people without blaming them for the actions of others?” | Certainty (closed response): “That’s victim-blaming. No one deserves to have their privacy violated.” Uncertainty (passive response): “I guess people should be careful, but it’s still not okay if it happens.” Control (enforcement): “You can’t just blame people for sharing nudes. It’s not their fault if their privacy is violated.” Manipulation (dismissive or blame): “Maybe you don’t understand how harmful it can be when this happens.” |
My understanding is that a safe uncertainty approach is about RSE experts creating ways to unpack these themes, giving young people space to talk through their thoughts and how they might respond to situations. While recognising that there are no simple answers, it still offers expert guidance and resources to support them in navigating their experiences.
Next steps for us
I showed these illustrations to Emily and Jonny during a meeting (very much like a student hoping for an A* in their homework) and they asked an excellent question: do you have any illustrations of people looking more happy?
We did not.
Although we had created these resources to support using safe uncertainty to discuss risk and navigate difficult situations, we hadn’t made ones to explore the more positive side of things.
This is something I’ve noticed more and more this year. There is an intense concentration on the worst things that young people are seeing online and doing in real life.
At Split Banana, we challenge a fear-based approach to RSE in many ways. Our mission is to support people to build joyful relationships. However, we can still fall into the trap of focusing too much on harm as a method of prevention, rather than imagining what these safer, more joyful relationships—and the world we want to live in—could look like, and using that as a starting point instead.
If you want to learn more about how to use this method and others, take a look at our upcoming training events, year-long leadership programmes and whole-school CPD sessions or just drop us an email to let us know your thoughts at hello@splitbanana.co.uk.
Reflecting on Anna’s experiences
What this account illustrates clearly is that safe uncertainty is not about abandoning structure or expertise, but about rethinking how these are used. Rather than positioning knowledge as something to be delivered and applied, it invites educators to work with what young people bring into the room and, in turn, foregrounding their questions, interpretations and lived realities.
At the same time, the blog highlights an ongoing tension within RSE: between addressing harm and creating space to imagine and build positive, ethical and joyful relationships. As this work continues to develop across our trailblazer network, these kinds of reflections are central to refining both the principles and practices of a safe uncertainty approach.
We welcome further dialogue on these ideas and encourage others to share how they are navigating similar challenges in their own contexts.