Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she plans to take to help (a) educate young people about the dangers of internet use and (b) prevent engagement in harmful online activities by young people.

As part of the statutory relationships and health education in primary schools and relationships, sex and health education (RSHE) in secondary schools, pupils are taught about online safety and harms. This includes being taught about what positive, healthy and respectful online relationships look like, the effects of their online actions on others, how to recognise and display respectful behaviour online, and where to get help and support for issues that occur online. The government’s guidance for primary and secondary school teaching on relationships, sex and health education can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/relationships-education-relationships-and-sex-education-rse-and-health-education/relationships-education-primary and: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/relationships-education-relationships-and-sex-education-rse-and-health-education/relationships-and-sex-education-rse-secondary.

The department has updated the Teaching Online Safety in Schools non-statutory guidance (2023), on how to teach about all aspects of internet safety in a coordinated and coherent way across their curriculum. Teaching about online safety also complements the computing curriculum, which covers the principles of online safety at all key stages, with progression in the content to reflect the different and escalating risks that pupils face. The computing curriculum can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-curriculum-in-england-computing-programmes-of-study.

The statutory ‘Keeping Children Safe in Education’ guidance, which all schools and colleges must have regard to when drawing up and implementing their own safeguarding policies, has been strengthened with regards to online safety in recent years. Governing bodies and proprietors should ensure online safety is a running and interrelated theme whilst devising and implementing their whole school or college approach to safeguarding and related policies and procedures. This includes doing all that they reasonably can to limit children’s exposure to the harmful online content on the school’s or college’s IT system.

The department has brought forward the review of the RSHE curriculum and statutory guidance. Stakeholders will have the opportunity to feed into the process through a thorough consultation. Following the consultation, the department will make a decision about any new content to be included in the RSHE curriculum. The department expects to publish the revised guidance soon after.