Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether the Government is working with representatives of local Violence Against Women and Girls sector organisations to implement relationship and sex education.

The department has not engaged specifically with any local representatives of sector organisations focused on violence against women and girls in relation to the implementation of the new Relationships, Sex and Health Education (RSHE) curriculum, which came into force in September 2020. The department commissioned Ofsted to undertake a review of sexual abuse in schools and colleges and they published their report in June 2021. The government accepted the findings in full. The department is developing a new support package for teachers, and we plan to engage with a range of stakeholders, including organisations with expertise in sexual abuse and violence against women and girls to inform that.

We will publish non-statutory RSHE guidance covering specific topics mentioned by the Ofsted review and in response to the Violence against Women and Girls strategy.

To support teachers further, we also plan to host a national webinar on specific topics in RSHE for teachers and other interested professionals using subject sector experts from the field and run smaller RSHE regional events to support teachers to network and share best practice.