Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps his Department is taking to help ensure consistent and high-quality teaching on HIV in schools across England.

The department wants to support all young people to lead happy, healthy and safe lives and to foster respect for other people and for difference. That is why we made the Relationships Education (RE) (for primary school pupils), Relationships and Sex Education (RSE) (for secondary school pupils) and Health Education (for all pupils in state-funded schools) compulsory subjects from September 2020.

In primary schools, age-appropriate RE includes supporting children to learn about what healthy relationships are and their importance, as well as how to develop mutually respectful relationships in all contexts, including online. This is intended to provide a foundation for RSE at secondary school.

In secondary schools, RE broadens to become age-appropriate RSE and will include factual knowledge around sex, sexual health, and sexuality, set firmly within the context of relationships. The relationships, sex and health education (RSHE) statutory guidance advises schools to be alive to issues such as sexism, misogyny, homophobia, and gender stereotypes, and to take positive action to tackle these issues. It should cover contraception, sexually transmitted infections, developing intimate relationships and resisting pressure to have sex. We expect young people to learn what a positive, healthy relationship can look like, about consent and how to keep themselves safe in a variety of situations. The guidance is available to view here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/relationships-education-relationships-and-sex-education-rse-and-health-education.

The statutory guidance is intended to help teachers deliver these subjects consistently to a high quality and with confidence. Pupils should learn about how all aspects of health can be affected by choices they make in sex and relationships, positively or negatively, such as physical, emotional, mental, sexual and reproductive health and wellbeing.

The ‘Intimate and sexual relationships, including sexual health’ topic specifies that by the end of secondary school pupils should know how the different sexually transmitted infections, including HIV/AIDS, are transmitted, how risk can be reduced through safer sex and the importance of and facts about testing. Pupils are also taught about HIV/AIDS at key stages 3 and 4 of the science curriculum.

To support teachers to deliver these topics safely and with confidence we have produced RSHE teacher training modules, available to view here: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/teaching-about-relationships-sex-and-health. At the beginning of each module the school is encouraged to name the appropriate lead for the topic in school, any relevant policies, specialist support available locally and additional information.

The department also funded the delivery of a train the trainer and peer support programme to schools from April 2020 to July 2021. The programme reached 4,800 schools.

Schools are free to determine how they use the core funding allocated to them, including investing in RSHE training for teachers. To support schools specifically with the implementation of the RSHE curriculum, we invested over £3 million in an additional package of support for RSHE over three years (financial years 2019/20 to 2021/22) after consultation with teachers over their support needs.