After a long wait, the Department for Education has finally published new Relationships Education, Relationships and Sex Education (RSE) and Health Education draft guidance.

Within this are a raft of new measures that education secretary Gillian Keegan said will help “support schools with how and when to teach often difficult and sensitive topics” and that would leave “no doubt about what is appropriate to teach pupils at every stage of school”.

One of the biggest changes put forward is to specify when certain topics within RSE should not be taught before a certain age limit - something which does not appear in the current guidance at all - but that could require schools to rethink their curriculum timings and sequencing.

Here are all the new age limit teaching proposals in the guidance:

1. No sex education before Year 5

The first age limit specified is the one that has gained the most headlines, with the DfE saying that sex education should not be taught before Year 5 - although the guidance makes clear teaching this in primary school is still recommended.

It states: “Sex education is not compulsory in primary schools, but the department recommends that primaries teach sex education in Years 5 or 6 (this should be taught no earlier than Year 5) in line with what pupils learn about conception and birth as part of the national curriculum for science.”

2. Online harms

Sticking with younger learners, a section in the guidance that relates to online harms sets out two areas that should not be taught before Year 3 as follows:

• Why social media, some apps, computer games and online gaming, including gambling sites, are age restricted.
• The risks relating to online gaming, video game monetisation, scams, fraud and other financial harms, and that gaming can become addictive.

Furthermore, while not setting an age limit, the guidance sets out that when discussing that the “internet can be a negative place where online abuse, bullying and harassment can take place” it is important that “care should be taken to avoid exposing children to concepts which may not be appropriate for them”.

3. Puberty and the menstrual cycle

Another primary-related age limit relates to a section in the guidance titled Developing bodies, which states the following should not taught before Year 4:

• About growth, change and the changing adolescent body. This topic should include the human lifecycle. Puberty should be mentioned as a stage in this process.
• The key facts about the menstrual cycle, including physical and emotional changes.

4. Waiting for secondary school

The guidance now moves to outline four areas that should not be taught to pupils before Year 7, the first three of which are:

• What constitutes harmful sexual behaviour and why, and that such behaviour is unacceptable, emphasising that it is never the fault of the person experiencing it.
• The concepts and laws relating to harmful sexual behaviour, including sexual harassment, revenge porn, upskirting and taking/sharing intimate sexual photographs without consent, public sexual harassment, and unsolicited sexual language/attention/touching.
• The concepts and laws relating to sexual exploitation and abuse, grooming, stalking and forced marriage.

The fourth area that should not be taught before Year 7 relates to the circulation of images, including why “making, keeping or sending naked or sexual images of someone under 18 is a crime”, even if the photo is of themselves or someone who has consented, or made by the child or by artificial intelligence.

5. Suicide prevention

The next secondary age limit for Year 8 is as follows: “Given the sensitivity and complexity of content on suicide prevention, direct references to suicide should not be made before Year 8.”

6. Sexual acts

The next set of age limits all refer to Year 9 and cover several major areas of RSE with some nuanced caveats.

The first relates to the impact of viewing harmful content, including pornography, that “presents a distorted picture of sexual behaviours”.

Given the huge issue this can pose, the guidance states while discussions about “the risks of inappropriate online content” can be discussed from Year 7 to help educate pupils, “the details of sexual acts should not be discussed before Year 9”.

7. Sexual violence

The second area covered refers to the law relating to sexual violence, including rape and sexual assault and, again, says schools must be careful in how they broach this.

“While it’s important for pupils to understand the key principles around sexual offences and violence, for example, the importance of understanding what consent means, schools should not teach about this in any sexually explicit way before year 9,” the guidance states.

8. Female genital mutilation

The third area relates to the “physical and emotional damage which can be caused by female genital mutilation (FGM), virginity testing and hymenoplasty” and laws around performing or assisting FGM or taking someone abroad for FGM.

While the guidance states that this should not taught before Year 9, it does acknowledge there may have to be an exception “where schools have identified a greater risk of FGM at an earlier age or have pupils who have been affected by FGM and need support”.

9. Domestic abuse

While the Domestic Abuse Act 2021 recognised that children who see, hear or experience the effects of domestic abuse are themselves victims of domestic abuse, the new guidance says children should not be taught about “violent abuse” before Year 9 as it is “important that pupils are not introduced to distressing concepts when they are too young to understand them”.

10. Intimate sexual relationships

Finally, a list of 10 topics listed on page 28 that should be taught under discussions around “intimate and sexual relationships, including sexual health” - such as consent, contraceptive choices, sexually transmitted diseases and the impact of alcohol and drugs on sexual behaviour - contains the following requirement that relates both to Year 9 students but also those above them, too.

“Explicit discussion of the details of sexual acts should not be taught before Year 9 and should only take place insofar as it is necessary to teach the topics below,” the guidance says.

Flexibility

Of course, the big issue for schools will be what to do if a situation arises where a topic needs addressing with year groups below the limits specified.

The draft guidance does acknowledge this may happen and that “flexibility may be necessary in order to respond promptly to issues which pose an imminent safeguarding risk to their pupils”.

It gives the example of a primary school being aware pupils are circulating pornographic material on social media, or a secondary school having to tackle a problem with sexual abuse in key stage 3.

In these instances, they say it would be appropriate for the school to address this with pupils to tackle the behaviour, make them aware of the risks and consequences and prevent it from happening again.

In such situations, though, parents must be informed an RSE topic is going to be taught ahead of the specified age limit.

Difficult questions

The other big issue is what happens if pupils start asking questions that, in the words of the guidance, ”go beyond any sex education covered by the school, or which cover age-restricted content”.

In these instances, the guidance says schools should make clear in their policies how teachers will handle such questions, with an emphasis on supporting the child.

It states: “This may include asking a pupil to speak to their parents or a trusted adult, signposting to support services where needed, and recognising that children whose questions go unanswered might instead turn to inappropriate sources of information, including online.”

Schools may also need to consider support and training in handling questions that are better not dealt with in the classroom, the guidance says.

Planning ahead

For now, all these changes are just proposals and are under consultation until 11 July so there is plenty of time for feedback that may lead to changes in the future for the final version.

This may make it hard for schools to definitively plan their RSE curricula for the next academic year, in case certain proposals are amended or removed - especially if a change in government signals a shift in focus in this area.

For the latest education news and analysis delivered directly to your inbox every weekday morning, sign up to the Tes Daily newsletter