Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, when his Department plans to publish updated sex education guidelines; and what steps is his Department is taking to ensure that those guidelines reflect diverse needs particularly for girls and LGBT+ young people.

The Department is making relationships education compulsory for all primary pupils and relationships and sex education (RSE) compulsory for all secondary pupils from September 2020. From that point, health education will also be compulsory for all state funded pupils.

Pupils should be taught about the society in which they are growing up. RSE should meet the needs of all pupils, whatever their developing identity or sexuality. The recently updated draft guidance sets out that pupils should know how stereotypes, in particular stereotypes based on sex, gender, race, religion, sexual orientation or disability, can cause damage, and how they might normalise non-consensual behaviour or encourage prejudice. Health education will also cover important relevant content, such as puberty and menstrual wellbeing in both primary and secondary schools.

Pupils should receive teaching on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transexual (LGBT) relationships during their school years. We expect secondary schools to include LGBT content and primary schools are encouraged and enabled to cover LGBT content if they consider it age appropriate to do so. The updated draft guidance can be accessed at the following link: https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/relationships-and-sex-education-and-health-education.