Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what progress his Department has made on the teaching of menstrual wellbeing in schools.

The Department wants to support all young people to be happy, healthy and safe, and to equip them for adult life and to make a positive contribution to society. That is why we have made Relationships Education compulsory for all primary school age pupils, Relationships and Sex Education compulsory for all secondary school age pupils, and Health Education compulsory for pupils in all state funded schools.

Schools are expected to start teaching the new subjects by at least the start of the summer term in 2021. Considering the circumstances faced by our schools, the Department is reassuring schools that they have flexibility over when they discharge their duty within the first year of compulsory teaching.

The statutory guidance sets out that as part of Health Education, primary and secondary school pupils should be taught about menstrual wellbeing, including key facts about the menstrual cycle. The statutory guidance can be accessed at:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/relationships-education-relationships-and-sex-education-rse-and-health-education.

Schools also have the flexibility to design the content of their curriculum in an age appropriate and developmentally sensitive way, to support their cohort of pupils. To help schools design their curriculum, the Department has signposted them to expert advice from Public Health England on reproductive health.

The Department’s guidance for teaching about relationships, sex and health covers all of the teaching requirements in the statutory guidance and includes online modules on teaching about menstrual wellbeing. The Department’s full guidance is available at:

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/teaching-about-relationships-sex-and-health.