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RSE update timing a ‘mystery’ given Covid, say heads

RSE update timing a ‘mystery’ given Covid, say heads

Schools will find it ‘difficult’ to implement guidance amid ongoing crisis, leaders warn

25th September 2020, 5:34pm

Schools will struggle to find “any spare minutes in the day” to implement new guidance on relationships and sex education (RSE) after months of “drowning” in Covid-related updates, heads have said.

And it is a “mystery” as to why the new RSE guidance was published this week, when the topic has “been on the radar for so long already”, according to the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL).

Yesterday the Department for Education (DfE) set out how schools can implement the statutory RSE guidance, which was published last year.

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This week’s guidance included a section on how schools can plan their RSE curriculum, and several related teacher training resources.

But while ASCL considered this a “well-meaning attempt to support schools”, the union’s director of policy, Julie McCulloch, said it was “not the greatest timing”.

Ms McCulloch told Tes: “This guidance is obviously a well-meaning attempt to support schools in the important task of introducing relationships and sex education.

“However, it is not the greatest timing for a weighty tome, when schools have spent months drowning in Covid-related guidance, and it is a mystery why it has been published now when RSE has been on the radar for so long already.

“The reality is that schools are incredibly busy in managing Covid controls, identifying learning gaps, and planning catch-up programmes, and it will be difficult for them to find any spare minutes in the day to plough through and implement another substantial set of guidance.”

In June, the government announced that schools could delay teaching the new RSE curriculum until the start of the summer term in 2021, if they felt they needed more time to prepare due to the Covid-19 crisis.

But schools that felt ready to deliver the new curriculum were encouraged to start lessons from 1 September, or ideally within the first few weeks of the academic year.

The DfE has been approached for comment.