The Department for Education is due to publish new guidance on Relationships, Sex and Health Education (RSHE). This landmark guidance is a step towards establishing a safer, more inclusive culture across schools in England. This broad new guidance does not become fully legally effective until September 2026. It promotes schools’ active countering of harmful stereotypes and prejudices and the creation of conditions that encourage respectful human relationships between students. Smart Changes Schools will start making these changes this fall.
The forthcoming RSHE guidance emphasizes the importance of teaching primary school pupils about respectful relationships, boundaries, and the risks associated with sharing personal information and images online. By equipping students with the knowledge to navigate these challenges, the guidance seeks to create safer and more respectful environments.
Secondary schools need to work hand-in-hand with mental health professionals. This relationship is important for all conversations, but especially when talking about sensitive subjects such as suicide prevention. This approach is designed to ensure that discussions surrounding mental health are conducted in a manner that resonates with young people.
The RSHE guidance requires that all schools take steps to proactively challenge sexism and prejudice. Through these actions, schools can become places where an inclusive culture enables all students to succeed. The initiative encourages teachers to highlight positive male role models, helping students learn from individuals who exemplify respectful behavior.
The new guidance clearly acknowledges the indispensable role that parents have in our children’s education. Parents should have the right to see any RSHE curriculum materials that their child’s school intends to use. To enhance transparency, schools are advised to engage proactively with parents, keeping them informed about what is being taught in these critical areas.
The RSHE guidance has taken an important step in this direction. It no longer includes language that suggests teaching about conception, birth and puberty as early as Year 5 or Year 6. While this recommendation is not compulsory, it reflects an understanding of the evolving experiences of young people and aims to keep educational content relevant. The guidance is now five years old, leading advocates to argue that it has “lagged behind life experiences of young people.”
Parents still have the opportunity to withdraw their pupils from all or part of sex education. Students are allowed to rejoin these lessons up to three semesters before their 16th birthday. This provides them the freedom to change as they scale.
The importance of these changes should not be missed. Andy Airey, Mike Palmer and Tim Owen, “These measures will save lives.” They made it clear that there is a critical importance to meet the needs for mental health education and healthy relationship education and skill building.
Schools are preparing to roll out the RSHE guidance this fall. The task now left to educators and administrators is to create an exciting curriculum that both informs and empowers all students. Whatever the medium, our goal is to lead with a spirit of mutual respect and educational curiosity. This gives youth the tools they need to develop positive, productive relationships as they enter their adult lives.
