Question to the Department for Education:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of whether their proposal to change the status of all secondary schools in England to academies would mean that maintained schools no longer have an obligation to deliver sex and relationship education.

Maintained secondary schools must continue to meet their existing statutory duties. All maintained secondary schools are required to teach sex and relationship education and we expect academies to teach it as part of a broad and balanced curriculum.

As announced in February, we will continue to keep the status of PSHE under review and work with a group of leading headteachers and practitioners to identify further action we can take to ensure that all pupils receive high quality, age appropriate PSHE and sex and relationship education.

When any school, including academies, teaches sex and relationship education, they must have regard to the Secretary of State’s statutory Sex and Relationship Education Guidance (2000). The guidance makes clear that all such lessons should be age-appropriate and that schools should ensure young people develop positive values and a moral framework that will guide their decisions, judgments and behaviour.