Alternative Education: Sex and Relationship Education

(asked on 20th September 2021) - View Source

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps the Government is taking to ensure that children not in mainstream education receive relationship and sex education.


Answered by
Robin Walker Portrait
Robin Walker
This question was answered on 24th September 2021

Relationships education is compulsory for all primary school pupils, relationships and sex education is compulsory for all secondary school pupils, and health education is compulsory for pupils in all state-funded schools. This includes pupils in special schools and pupil referral units. In teaching the new curriculum, schools must have regard to the statutory guidance.

To support all teachers to deliver the curriculum, the department has developed a package of support which can be accessed via this link: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/teaching-about-relationships-sex-and-health. To further support teachers of pupils with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND), we have delivered a national webinar as well as regional training events for primary and secondary schools:

https://www.pshe-association.org.uk/content/send-hub;

https://nasen.org.uk/resources/supporting-effective-delivery-new-statutory-rshe-curriculum-pupils-send-primary-focused;

https://nasen.org.uk/resources/supporting-effective-delivery-new-statutory-rshe-curriculum-pupils-send-secondary-focused.

We have also developed a teacher training module specifically about teaching relationships, sex and health education (RSHE) to pupils with SEND: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/teaching-about-relationships-sex-and-health#pupils-with-send.

As with other aspects of the curriculum, schools have flexibility over how they deliver RSHE, so they can develop an integrated approach that is sensitive to the needs and background of their pupils.

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