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Relationships, sex and health education (RSHE): requirements

Understand your requirements to teach relationships and health education in primary school, and RSHE in secondary school. Find out what you're expected to cover and understand parents' right to withdraw their children from sex education.

Last reviewed on 8 May 2025
•Ref: 46603
Contents
  1. Your requirements
  2. Pupils can be withdrawn from sex education
  3. How Ofsted will inspect RSE 
  4. Expectations for what pupils should know 
  5. Faith schools

Your requirements

All schools with a secondary phase (including all-through and middle schools) need to provide:

  • Relationships and sex education (RSE)
  • Health education

This is set out on page 10 the DfE's statutory guidance on relationships education, relationships and sex education and health education (RSHE). 

You must have an RSE policy

You must have an RSE policy in place and you must:

This requirement is outlined in sections 8 to 12 of the Relationships Education, Relationships and Sex Education and Health Education (England) Regulations 2019. 

It is referred to as a 'statement' in the legislation linked above, but the DfE confirmed that this refers to a policy. 

Independent schools

All the requirements above apply, except around the new health education requirement, because you're already required to provide PSHE. 

This is the case even if providers of teaching resources ask