Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether her Department has made an assessment of the effectiveness of the Preparing for Healthy Relationships toolkit developed by the Mayor of London to address violence against women and girls; and what assessment she has made of the potential merits of rolling the toolkit out nationally.

The government has pledged to halve violence against women and girls (VAWG) in the next decade. Education has a crucial role to play in preventing and tackling harmful behaviour, helping children and young people to develop empathy, boundaries and respect for difference.

Through compulsory relationships education, all pupils will learn how to form positive and respectful relationships and develop an understanding of the concepts and laws around sexual harassment and sexual violence.

The department is reviewing the statutory relationships, sex and health education (RSHE) curriculum, and as part of this review we are looking at how to ensure that the guidance equips pupils, starting in primary, to form healthy and respectful relationships. We are analysing consultation responses, talking to stakeholders and considering relevant evidence to determine how this can fully complement our wider actions to tackle VAWG. Ministers have been clear that the RSHE guidance must support schools to tackle misogynistic attitudes and help students gain the knowledge and skills needed to develop healthy relationships.

We are currently considering how best to support teachers to deliver high-quality RSHE and are aware of many of the programmes and toolkits already in place, including the Healthy Relationships toolkit developed by Tender and launched by the Mayor of London, which we understand is free for schools to use if they wish. As with other curriculum subjects, the department does not advise schools on which resources, external speakers or organisations to use, not least because schools operate in a variety of different contexts and have both the expertise and knowledge that makes them best placed to make these decisions.  The department does not endorse or promote third-party resources to schools.