Personal, Social, Health and Economic Education: Gambling

(asked on 13th May 2021) - View Source

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what plans his Department has to make teaching on the risks of gambling addiction compulsory in PSHE lessons in secondary schools.


Answered by
Nick Gibb Portrait
Nick Gibb
This question was answered on 21st May 2021

The Department has made relationships education compulsory for all primary schools, relationships and sex education compulsory for all secondary school pupils and health education compulsory for pupils in all state-funded schools. Health education includes teaching pupils about the risks associated with gambling. The statutory guidance is available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/relationships-education-relationships-and-sex-education-rse-and-health-education.

These subjects will make sure that children and young people are taught about the risks associated with gambling and are able to make informed decisions about their own actions. These subjects will also support pupils to understand the importance of their mental wellbeing and promote safe online behaviour. For example, under the topic of internet safety and harms, the guidance sets out that young people should be taught about the risks related to online gambling, including the accumulation of debt, how advertising and information is targeted at them and how to be a discerning consumer of information online.

To support schools to deliver this content, the Department has produced teacher training modules. This includes teaching pupils about the risks associated with gambling as part of health education. A link to the training modules is available on GOV.UK and can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/teaching-about-relationships-sex-and-health#primary-teacher-training-modules.

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