Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department has taken since the Women’s Health Strategy to ensure that girls and boys receive high quality, evidence based education from an early age on (a) fertility, (b) contraception and (c) pregnancy planning, maternity care and pregnancy loss.

The Department of Health and Social Care published the first ever government-led Women’s Health Strategy for England in Summer 2022. This sets out a 10 year ambition for boosting the health and wellbeing of women and girls.

To support women’s health, in September 2020 the Government made relationships education compulsory for primary school pupils, relationships and sex education compulsory for secondary school pupils, and health education compulsory for all pupils in state funded schools.

The relationships, sex and health education statutory guidance states that pupils should be taught factual knowledge around sex, sexual health, and sexuality, set firmly within the context of relationships. This statutory guidance can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/relationships-education-relationships-and-sex-education-rse-and-health-education.

Within the topic ‘intimate and sexual relationships, including sexual health’, pupils should learn about human fertility and reproduction, pregnancy, sexually transmitted infections and contraception and sexual health advice. Schools have the flexibility to teach about a wide range of topical subjects, including maternity care and pregnancy loss.

To support teachers to deliver these topics safely and with confidence, the Department has produced relationships, sex and health education teacher training modules that are free to download. These are available at: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/teaching-about-relationships-sex-and-health. The content of the intimate and sexual relationships module was informed by subject experts, including the National Children’s Bureau and Public Health England, now the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities.