C Curriculum Explorer
Personal & Social Development·Responsible Decision-Making·conceptual

Difficult Ethical Choices

Understand that ethical decisions are not always black and white — that sometimes there is no perfect answer and reasonable people can disagree — and practise weighing up competing values when making difficult choices

Suggested ages 9–11

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Learning journey

Your child is learning to navigate peer pressure and understand their rights and responsibilities in communities, while developing skills to think through ethical dilemmas from multiple perspectives.

Evidence of understanding

  • Describe a moral dilemma where both sides have valid points
  • Explain the values in tension (e.g., loyalty vs safety, honesty vs kindness)
  • Describe how they would make a decision in such a situation and justify their reasoning

Assessment prompt

If Difficult Ethical Choices's friend tells them a secret but the secret involves something dangerous, can Difficult Ethical Choices think through the tension between loyalty to their friend and the need to keep someone safe?

Standards alignment

No external standards are linked to this topic.