Planning your Sex Education Curriculum

Sex education is taught in the context of relationships education (relationships and sex education -RSE), usually within PSHE (personal, social and health education), it is compulsory for all secondary educated pupils. 

Primary schools are not ‘required’ to teach sex education, but it is it is good practice.  They are expected to teach about development (puberty), ‘answer questions about sex and sexuality’ and cover reproduction in other parts of the curriculum.

DfE guidance to teaching sex education covers, curriculum content, working with parents, considering equality and compliance in law; this applies to all pupils and all schools and aims to support pupil’s ongoing development with age and maturity appropriate sex education.

Secondary schools are required to have a policy to manage delivery of their sex education, this is often combined with their relationships policy.

Parents have the right to request that their child be withdrawn from some or all of the sex education part of RSE up to 3 terms before a young person is 16, (sometimes called the right to withdraw), schools are encouraged to work with parents to prevent this. 

In October 2023 the Secretary of State sent a letter to schools outlining their responsibilities to share RSE materials with parents.

By the end of secondary school pupils should be equipped to understand intimate and sexual relationships including sexual health.

Pupils should be able to recognise inappropriate sexual behaviour in the context of the law and safeguarding.

They should be also be aware of the facts about reproductive health and their choices. 

There are several organisations supporting delivery of sex education and the RSHE curriculum with programmes of study (PSHE Association ) or guidance on an inclusive curriculum (Stonewall)

SWISH's Young Peoples Team deliver a Somerset wide sexual health and contraceptive service to all young people under the age of 25 including those under 16. 

School Nurses work with school aged young people in the community to deliver relationship and sexual health services and guidance.

Safeguarding is always considered when delivering these services. More service information is available on the Sexual Health Services for Young Peoples' webpage.

The Somerset  Wellbeing Framework is an evidenced based tool that can be used by all schools to create the conditions needed to foster positive health and wellbeing (including sexual health) in their school community through a whole school approach including the curriculum.

For more information about sexual health training visit the