The Department for Education has announced the membership and terms of reference for an independent expert advisory panel formed to advise on the review of Relationships, Sex and Health Education (RSHE).
The Sex Education Forum is very concerned about the remit that the panel is tasked with, which is focused on recommending ‘which age restriction to apply to which topics’. The remit presupposes that age restrictions are needed to govern the provision of an area of school curriculum.
The introduction of age ratings would make teachers extremely nervous about teaching a subject that they already feel they lack confidence and adequate training in, and has the potential to stifle children and young people’s genuine questions and cut off a vital avenue for safeguarding and accessing help.
Applying age restrictions to any other area of the curriculum would be unimaginable. There is a serious risk of resurrecting the harm of Section 28, and creating legislation that prohibits the teaching of any number of equalities, health and rights issues.
The move to make RSHE mandatory reflected the widespread support for RSHE from Parliamentarians, families, schools and young people, and confidence in the research evidence that underpins it. The benefits of RSHE for society range from reductions in violence in relationships to better sexual and mental health. However, to fully realise the benefits, teachers need adequate training and support, and skills to navigate complex issues such as healthy relationships and online safety, and to curate a curriculum which addresses the real life experiences and developmental needs across the life course.
The lack of training and support for teachers is something that the Sex Education Forum has consistently pressed the government to address. Only 40% of young people rate their RSE lessons as good or very good (Young People's RSE Poll 2022) and students consistently tell us they don’t learn enough about today’s most pressing issues. Regrettably, Ministers have failed to fix this and it has been teachers and young people who have been let down - this review of RSHE remains an opportunity to address this shortfall yet it appears it may again be missed.
A further concern is the absence in the panel’s terms of reference to children and young people as stakeholders. Children and young people rely on school as a source of trustworthy, open and safe education. This is in stark contrast to the unrestricted online environment that children and young people are exposed to on a daily basis, which is rife with harm and misleading content. Attempting to restrict children’s access to safe education is fundamentally missing the point.
We call on the Government to put children and young people’s needs at the heart of the review.
1 June 2023
Further information
- News item from DfE (31 May 2023) on the formation of an independent expert advisory panel to inform the RSHE review
- Terms of reference for the independent expert advisory panel
- Sex Education Forum (2023) Young People's RSE Poll 2022
- Our statement welcoming the RSHE review - March 2023
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