The Draft RSHE Guidance – The Introduction of Age Restrictions.
May 2024 | Reading time: 7 minutes
Table of Contents
What does the Draft RSHE Guidance mean for schools?
The new draft RSHE guidance has received a controversial response [5], but what does it mean for schools?
Currently, the new RSHE guidance is a draft that has been released publicly for consultation [1]. In the meantime, schools are still required to comply with the statutory guidance 2019 [2].
There is no forecast as to when the new guidance will become statutory. The consultation feedback may result in further changes. Schools must follow the current guidance until we have a clearer picture of the changes that will go ahead, and when these will need to be adopted by schools. With a general election now on July 4th (the consultation period for the new draft guidance ends on July 11th) it could mean that this guidance is not enforced at all.
At Elize Education, we will keep a very close eye on developments and ensure that the schools we work with are aware of what they need to do and if and when they may need to make changes.
What has changed?
The main headline that has been reported is that age limits have been introduced for several topics within the RSHE guidance. These are largely applied to details regarding sexual behaviour including sexual abuse, details for specific sex acts, inappropriate content online and sexting.
These topics are mentioned in the current RSHE guidance, but schools have been given the option of teaching these when they feel they are relevant to their students. This has allowed teachers to respond to the needs of their students.
Many of these age limits seem a little unnecessary, and although they have been introduced in the guidance, they won’t result in a change to what schools are currently doing. These include topics such as:
What constitutes harmful sexual behaviour?
Concepts relating to harmful sexual behaviour, including upskirting, sexual harassment, revenge porn, sharing intimate photographs and unsolicited language, attention and touching.
The concepts and laws relating to sexual exploitation and abuse, grooming, stalking, and forced marriage. [1]
It is specified in the draft guidance that these topics should not be covered before year 7. Because most children stay in primary school until the end of year 6, and none of these topics appear in the current guidance for primary schools, they aren’t taught until at least year 7 anyway.
Many schools choose not to teach these topics in year 7 or 8 at secondary school due to their complexity and the maturity needed by students to understand them.
The introduction of these age limits, and in some cases, the way they have been reported in the media might lead some parents to believe they have been introduced because children currently in primary school are being taught about complex, upsetting and potentially damaging topics that they are not old enough to understand. This is absolutely not the case.
There may be some instances where these topics need to be addressed in schools before year 7. For example, if an incident occurs where an explicit image has been shared amongst students, the school will need to respond appropriately. The new draft RSHE guidance makes allowances for this by including the statement:
“Schools should seek to follow these age limits at all times. However, flexibility may be necessary in order to respond promptly to issues which pose an imminent safeguarding risk to their pupils. In certain circumstances, schools may decide to teach age-limited topics earlier, provided it is necessary to do so in order to safeguard pupils and provided that teaching is limited to the essential facts, without going into unnecessary detail. Parents must be informed in these cases and appropriate safeguarding measures put in place.
For example, if a primary school becomes aware that pupils are circulating pornographic material on social media, or if a secondary school becomes aware of a problem with sexual abuse in Key Stage 3, it would be appropriate for the school to address this with pupils in order to tackle the behaviour promptly, make them aware of the risks and consequences and prevent it from happening in future. However, this does not mean schools should go into the details of the sexual acts in question. “[1]
Schools still have this flexibility should they need it. In many ways, these changes don’t actually mean that the way in which these topics are taught, and when they are taught will change very much at all. If there was an incident where inappropriate behaviour occurred or inappropriate content has been shared, schools already engage with their parent body to ensure the issues are dealt with quickly and appropriately. Again, this RSHE guidance and the way it has been reported in the media can give the impression that schools aren’t already doing this. This is absolutely not the case.
The draft RSHE guidance does perhaps give schools a little more confidence that they are introducing these topics when appropriate, but this could have also been achieved by giving schools and teachers the budget and resources to train teachers to deliver these topics. Many secondary school teachers did not have any RSE or PSHE content covered on their teacher training courses, and any CPD offered in and by schools is only available if the school has the funds to be able to provide training and access to professionals who can provide quality training.
RSHE guidance telling schools ‘You must not talk about these topics’ is perhaps not as useful as training that helps teachers appropriately address these topics if they do come up, and properly understand the best way of talking to young people about these topics so that they are better equipped to engage in the world around them.
If not from school, from where will young people get this information?
The recent Sex Education Forum poll into young people’s experience of RSE has told us that school is still the best source of education for young people who identify as straight about consent and healthy relationships. [3].
If young people feel they now are no longer receiving adequate education on these topics, and if young people who identify as LGBT continue to feel that their teachers are not equipped to give them this important education, they are more likely to turn to other places to learn about these subjects.
Young people increasingly turn to social media and are influenced by what other, sometimes unqualified people advise. This, alongside worrying information gathered by the Children’s Commissioner regarding the frequency with which young people are viewing pornography online, could result in the children and young people of today receiving inaccurate information and forming unstable ideas of what an aspirational relationship might look like.
The Children’s Commissioner’s report found that 27% of children had seen porn online by the age of 11 and that X (formerly Twitter) is the platform where the highest percentage of children have seen pornography (41%). [4].
It is therefore imperative that teachers can manage questions and worries that young people may have by having high-quality RSE training and the ability to address these subjects in the classroom as and when they are relevant to the young people they teach. These age restrictions therefore might make some teachers less confident to do this for fear of going against government guidance.
Eliza Education will continue to monitor the RSHE guidance as it develops.
