Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what plans her Department has to introduce relationship skills to the school curriculum.

Sex and relationships education (SRE) is compulsory in all maintained secondary schools and academies are expected to provide SRE as part of a broad and balanced curriculum. All schools should offer high quality relationships education and build a curriculum that meets the needs of their students.

Any school teaching SRE must have regard to the Secretary of State’s Sex and Relationship Education Guidance (2000). The guidance makes clear that all sex and relationship education 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.

In order to support teaching about healthy relationships, the PSHE Association has developed non-statutory guidance for schools about the topic of consent, which was published in March 2015 and can be found at www.pshe-association.org.uk. We strongly welcome this guidance. The PSHE Association’s guidance will help teachers establish the legal framework around consent and supports the government’s ‘This is Abuse’ campaign, which helps educate young people about damaging behaviours within relationships.