Recently, the Department for Education (DfE) in England’s government released draft guidance for consulting on a new RSHE curriculum. This guidance lays out what students should learn about and at what age they should be introduced to each topic. The final guidance, issued in July 2025 by the newly elected Labour government, emphasizes the importance of engaging with parents and ensuring that students receive developmentally appropriate education.
The guidance explicitly mentions that sex education should not start any sooner than Year 5. That typically means young students around the ages of nine to ten years old. This is very much in concert with our original draft recommendations from late 2022. They recommended that topics including sexual harassment and pornography be taught only from Year 7, when students are usually about eleven or twelve years old. The intention behind these age restrictions is to ensure that children receive information that is suitable for their cognitive and emotional development.
The new guidance represents an historic departure from previous years’ policies. Now schools are advised to meaningfully engage parents in discussions about the RSHE curriculum. Additionally, all schools in England are required to publish their RSHE policy on their school website. Further, they must send out notice to parents any time there is a change in the curriculum. This transparency aims to foster a collaborative environment where parents can feel informed and engaged in their children’s education.
Their early years guidance details what subjects children must learn from age three to sixteen. It does not attach an age (or grade level) to each topic. The guidance recommends teaching aspects of conception, birth and puberty during Years 5 or 6. It won’t be required to teach these subjects. Schools get to decide how and when these subjects are integrated, if at all.
The RSHE framework became a statutory requirement for all secondary schools in England. This requirement is the heart and soul of the program. This requirement reflects a commitment to ensuring that students receive a comprehensive understanding of relationships and health as they progress through their education. In addition, students are encouraged to express their concerns if they believe lessons do not align with their age or maturity level.
The implementation of RSHE has hardly been smooth sailing. In 2019, climate strikes and protests erupted across England. All of this followed the UK government’s decision to make young children learn about healthy relationships and LGBT equality. In September 2023, protesters marched against plans to introduce gender identity ideology outside a school in Manchester. They argued that the curriculum was sexualizing children and called for LGBT content to be removed.
These concerns were echoed by several head teacher unions in a letter that opposed the RSHE guidance. They expressed their concern over what the review, called by ex-Conservative Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, could mean for future policy. The unions argue that any changes should be made carefully and with close consideration of the educational needs of students.
Parental rights have been a key part of the narrative around RSHE as well. Parents in England keep the right to see every piece of teaching material used for RSHE at their child’s school. This guidance empowers parents by better informing them on what their children are learning. It critically holds schools accountable for the actual content that they teach.
The education system is an incredibly complicated ecosystem with many competing interests. It’s incredibly important that schools, parents, students, and policymakers come together and meet in the middle. The goal is to ensure that young people are better equipped with knowledge and skills about relationships and sexual health that are appropriate for their developmental level.
