Statutory requirements and curriculum planning
Most of PSHE education became statutory for all schools from September 2020 under the Children and Social Work Act 2017. This includes Relationships Education at key stages 1 and 2, Relationships and Sex Education (RSE) at key stages 3 and 4, and Health Education in both primary and secondary phases. The Department for Education published Statutory Guidance for Relationships Education, Relationships and Sex Education (RSE) and Health Education in June 2019 . These new statutory requirements do not extend to sex education at KS 1 and 2 (beyond the biological/reproductive aspects schools are already required to cover in science). However, the Department for Education ‘continues to recommend that all primary schools should have a sex education programme tailored to the age and the physical and emotional maturity of the pupils’
PSHE Curriculum Planning
There are tools to help PSHE leads plan an effective PSHE/RSE curriculum:
- PSHE Association education planning toolkits for Key Stages 1-4 and for SEND Key Stages 1-4 have been designed to be used alongside the PSHE Association Programme of Study for PSHE education: Health and Wellbeing, Relationships and Living in the Wider World. The tool kits will enable PSHE education subject leaders to review, design and develop their own scheme of work, based on best practice curriculum design, tailored for the context of the school and needs of the pupils.
- Health Education Partnership Resources Locally, HEP have produced separate PSHE and Wellbeing Frameworks for Primary and Secondary schools that cover the statutory content and the non-statutory elements for secondary schools such as economic wellbeing. Schools in Barnet are encouraged to use the framework to help plan and deliver their PSHE curriculum.