PSHE IS CHANGING!

You may have seen in the news that government guidance on how and what schools teach in Relationships Education, Health Education and Sex Education (RHSE) is being updated.

The changes reflect the importance of informing children in order to protect them from harm and are necessary due to the changing world we live in. Relationships Education, Health Education and Sex Education are taught in schools as part of the PSHE (Personal, Social, Health and Economic Education) teaching.

Schools are expected to begin teaching the new content from September 2026 and it is important that school consults with parents before this.

The new guidance clarifies what must be taught in RHSE. It promotes teaching RHSE as part of PSHE teaching and puts a greater emphasis on online safety and wellbeing.

This includes:

• finding out about online financial harms such as video game monetization, scams and fraud as well as finding out about the need for age restrictions.
• guidance on how to critically engage with what you see online and to recognise your rights e.g privacy, consent and personal data.
• teaching children to understand their bodies and the changes they might experience. This includes the established best practice for safeguarding of using correct names for body parts including genitalia.
• learning about personal safety for example fire safety and travel safety.
• learning about change, loss and bereavement and the associated emotions.

The new guidance has an enhanced focus on skills to support the knowledge children gain. For example, in relationships education, there is new learning on being assertive when expressing needs and boundaries. Going forward, primary schools will have the flexibility to address age appropriate sex education.

• At Grendon, we already cover Relationships Education and Health Education as part of our broad PSHE teaching.
• We have historically chosen to teach age appropriate sex education and plan to continue to do this in Year 6.
• Our PSHE teaching is, and will continue to be, age appropriate and delivered in a sensitive manner where children are taught about social norms in an impersonal way.
• From September 2026, we propose using the government approved PSHE Association documents to teach our PSHE lessons. This will be a change from the SCARF materials we have used in recent years.
• You will continue to be informed by letter about the content of PSHE lessons in the term and will be invited to discuss or view any materials before teaching.
• There will be one optional lesson ‘How a baby is made’ where in Year 6 children will be taught about sexual intercourse and pregnancy.
• Parents have a right to request their child is withdrawn from the optional Y6 sex education lesson. All other lessons address statutory Health Education or Relationships Education content and while we will continue to invite parents to view the materials that will be used, there is no parental right to withdraw children from the lessons.

Below you can find:

• The new government guidance
• our draft PSHE policy
• an overview of the units we plan to teach in each year group
• sample lessons and resources

Contact Mrs Collins (scollins@grendon.bham.sch.uk) if you want to talk about our plans for PSHE teaching or to look in more detail at the resources we are planning to use.

And finally… Your views are important to us so please look out for our PSHE survey on 1st May and use your opportunity to tell us what you think of our plans! This will be emailed to you and a link will be displayed here.