Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to his oral contribution of 25 February 2019, Official Report, how much funding in addition to that £6 million will be available to schools to enable them to (a) deliver high-quality (i) relationships and sex education and (ii) relationships education and (b) (i) train teachers and (ii) equip them with effective resources.

The Department is committed to supporting schools to teach the new subjects to a high standard, and will continue to work with subject experts to ensure schools are supported to improve their practice. This will focus on a supplementary guide, targeted support on materials, and training. The Department has announced a budget of £6 million in 2019-20 to develop this programme of support for schools. Funding beyond 2019-20 is a matter for the forthcoming Spending Review.

The Department knows that many schools already teach these subjects well, often as part of Personal, Social, Health, and Economic Education and will be able to adapt to the new requirements quickly. As part of the programme of support in the 2019/20 financial year, the Department is establishing an early adopter school programme to support early teaching of the new requirements from September 2019.

The lessons the Department learns from these early adopter schools will be shared with schools working to a slower timetable, and it will work with early adopter schools to support the design of the training programme and to refine the supplementary guide.