In September 2020, Relationship Education, Relationships and Sex Education (RSE) and Health Education are (at last!) becoming compulsory in Primary and Secondary schools.

2020 Changes A Plenty -  What Do You Need To Know?

In September 2020, Relationship Education, Relationships and Sex Education (RSE) and Health Education are (at last!) becoming compulsory in Primary and Secondary schools. This is very welcome and exciting news, but some of you might be wondering what exactly this will mean for you in the classroom!

While the changes have not yet been finalised, the Department of Education have released a draft guidance which gives us a good idea of what we can expect. Here is a summary of what we found:

Primary Schools

In the new guidance primary schools will have to teach relationship education (although in the draft guidance they don’t have to cover sex education).

In the draft guidance from September 2020 your Relationships Education will need to cover:

  • Families and people who care for me
  • Caring friendships
  • Respectful relationships
  • Online relationships
  • Being safe

Your Health Education will need to cover:

  • Mental wellbeing
  • Internet safety and harms
  • Physical health and fitness
  • Healthy Eating
  • Drugs, alcohol and tobacco
  • Health and prevention
  • Basic first aid
  • Changing adolescent body

Your KS1 and KS2 science curriculum will now be required to include education on the main external body parts, how the body changes from birth to old age, and puberty.

The Loudmouth programmes which can assist you with these topics are:

Bully4U Primary

Helping Hands

My Mate Fancies You

Secondary Schools

Your Relationships and Sex Education will need to cover:

  • Families
  • Respectful relationships including friendships
  • Online and Media
  • Being safe
  • Intimate and sexual relationships including sexual health

Your Health Education will need to cover:

  • Mental wellbeing
  • Internet safety and harms
  • Physical health and fitness
  • Healthy Eating
  • Drugs, alcohol and tobacco
  • Health and prevention
  • Basic first aid
  • Changing adolescent body

Your KS3 and KS4 science curriculum will now be required to include reproduction in humans, menstrual cycles, and HIV/AIDS.

The Loudmouth programmes which can assist you with these topics are:

Bully4U Secondary

My Mate Fancies You

One 2 Many

Safe and Sound

Trust Me

Working For Marcus


Read more about how our programmes can support you to address these topics here.


Further Help

Hopefully this information will be able to help you in your planning for the upcoming changes in PSHE. We understand that even though these changes should have a positive impact on your children and young people that it can be a struggle to keep on top of the latest changes and stressful for some staff to know what to do. We can help you and your team feel prepared and confident in teaching these subject with our staff training programme: How to work effectively with children and young people on RSE / PSHE. You can find out more information about that here.

You can also sign up to our mailing list with regular updates, tips and free resources here.

What people say

Take a look at how we’ve helped others

Brilliant acting and interaction with the children. The play itself covered puberty in an open, realistic and humorous way which forms a terrific basis for future discussion with the teacher and each other. So much depends on the enthusiasm of the actors and I feel that we were very lucky to have such a talented pair, not only to perform, but to lead the discussions afterwards. They were able to relate to the children without any embarrassment. SUPERB!!

Governor/Teacher

Compared to other companies we have had covering the same content, the actors were more flexible and accommodating to the children’s individual needs. Through their answers and questions, the children were demonstrating a higher level of understanding, empathy and personal safety.

Safeguarding Lead