RSHE 2025: A New Chapter for Relationships, Sex and Health Education
- Russell Stanley
- Oct 7
- 5 min read
We’re thrilled to introduce Health & Wellbeing in Schools as a new partner organisation of youHQ. Health and Wellbeing in Schools provides a range of specialist PSHE/RSHE support services to schools.
In this new blog, their Director, Russell Stanley, takes a look at the updated 2025 RSHE guidance for schools and talks about some of the opportunities and challenges that this presents to schools.
On 15 July 2025, the Department for Education published long-awaited updates to the statutory guidance for Relationships, Sex and Health Education (RSHE) in England. This marks a significant evolution in how schools can support the wellbeing, safety, and wider development of children and young people. Building on the original 2019 framework, this new guidance leans towards a more inclusive, skills-based, and safeguarding-focused approach - whilst also leaving some questions unanswered.
Schools are expected to fully implement the new guidance by 1 September 2026, with the option to begin adopting it from September 2025, which means that we have a full academic year to prepare. That’s a welcome opportunity to reflect, plan, and ensure your RSHE provision is meaningful, age-appropriate, and tailored to your pupils’ needs. I’d certainly advise that schools make the most of this time!
As before, any Relationships Education/RSE requirements are statutory for all schools at primary or secondary phase, whereas the Health Education requirements don’t legally apply to the independent school sector due to the ‘defacto’ PSHE expectations within the ISI Framework and expected standards.
Now that we’ve had the chance to settle back into school life this academic year (!), let’s take a look at some of the main elements of the updated 2025 guidance document.
A More Inclusive and Practical RSHE Framework?
One of the most positive developments is the inclusion of guiding principles that promote an inclusive, transparent, and supportive curriculum and contain many of the fundamentals of best practice within PSHE education. Other key principles include parental transparency, positivity, and relevance - all designed to support a curriculum that is tailored to your own school. There is a clear message that schools can judge for themselves and contextualise what is taught and when based on their own needs – certainly a welcome backing for schools to really ‘own’ the guidance provided in an age appropriate, flexible way, and to start learning earlier where needed.
The structure of the guidance remains similar to the 2019 version, with content outlined for both primary and secondary phases. However, there’s an emphasis on careful sequencing rather than the rigid age limits that were proposed in the ill-fated previous ‘draft’ update version from 2024 (thank goodness). There are also some useful examples of pupil learning linked to curriculum content, so it feels much more fit for purpose and user friendly than the 2019 version. Even the simple numbering of bullet points within each unit of learning is very helpful!
Delivery should be interactive, led by trained staff who understand the principles of safe and effective delivery, and embedded within a whole-school approach to wellbeing, safeguarding, and positive relationships. This time the guidance encouraging schools to go beyond simply providing knowledge and reinforces a skills and attributes model rather than a one-size-fits-all curriculum, giving schools flexibility to meet the diverse needs of their pupils and school community.
What’s New and Noteworthy in the 2025 RSHE Guidance
Here are just a few of the most significant updates:
Positive masculinity: A new emphasis on helping boys develop a healthy sense of masculinity, encouraging emotional expression, help-seeking, and respectful relationships.
Online & digital safety: Much strengthened and new outcomes around online safety education, including critical thinking about digital content, AI-generated deepfakes, harmful content and toxic online subcultures. Content is also included around financial risks, scams and gaming.
Early safeguarding: Young children will learn how to recognise and report abusive behaviour, including using correct terminology for private body parts; there is now a defined list for primary phase – hurrah!
Personal safety: A brand new unit within Health Education for both phases, this covers teaching about hazards, road, rail, water and fires safety. Also added is much needed content around peer influence, knives and conflict resolution.
Teacher agency: Schools are empowered to contextualise content based on evidence and their community’s needs, with professional judgement supported through high-quality training and planning.
Transparency with parents: All schools should be prepared to share resources and must engage in meaningful and proactive consultation when reviewing RSE policies. Openness with parents is heavily mentioned across the document!
Where Are the Potential Issues?
While the guidance is a big step forward, it’s not without its challenges:
Post-16 omission: There’s still no statutory RSHE requirement for KS5, despite strong calls from the sector, which feels like a missed opportunity.
SEND adaptations: The guidance lacks any useful detail or guidance on how to adapt content for SEND learners, though this is still expected in mainstream and special schools or alternative provision.
Terminology changes: Some updates - like renaming “mental wellbeing” to “general wellbeing” and reordering outcome statements - may cause confusion.
Accountability gaps: The 2019 requirement for governors to ensure proper resourcing is missing which could result in a lack of oversight.
Curriculum time: The additional content, especially at secondary level, will definitely need expanded planning, delivery space and time, but there’s no guarantee of protected time to deliver it. This may lead to some topics being slimmed down which could dilute coverage and learning.
Next Steps for Schools
These updates require clear leadership and whole-school coordination. Over the course of the 25/26 academic year, although not an exhaustive list, we recommend carrying out these basic key actions to make the most of the transition period:
Review the full 2025 RSHE guidance and share it with staff, governors, and trustees.
Audit your current PSHE/RSHE curriculum to identify gaps and ensure alignment with the new expectations for your phase.
Update planning documents and teaching resources, ready for delivery by September 2026.
Revise your RSE policy, ensuring it reflects new requirements and includes proper consultation with parents, staff, and pupils.
Plan staff training to build confidence and expertise. A DfE-funded training budget is expected to support this but either way you should build this into your plans.
Prepare to share resources with parents, ensuring transparency and trust in your RSHE provision.
Get support if you need it!
Final Thoughts
The updated 2025 guidance brings many promising opportunities and potential challenges for schools, but it is certainly a progressive piece of statutory guidance which is very welcome and much-needed.
It brings clarity, relevance, and a stronger safeguarding focus to a subject that’s often complex and sensitive. With thoughtful leadership, collaboration, and support, schools can turn these updates into meaningful opportunities for pupils - and create RSHE and PSHE provision that truly makes a difference.
If the thought of tackling all this feels overwhelming, you’re not alone - help is available!
Russell Stanley, Independent PSHE Consultant and Director of Health & Wellbeing in Schools Ltd, is here to support you! Whether you need tailored advice, curriculum audits, policy reviews, staff training, or just want to explore your options, they can help you navigate the changes with confidence.
Please get in touch for advice, support, or a friendly conversation about how Health & Wellbeing in Schools Ltd can help your school prepare for the updated RSHE expectations or anything to do with PSHE education!
Join Health and Wellbeing in School’s Upcoming Briefing Sessions!
Health and Wellbeing in Schools is also running a series of briefing sessions for primary and secondary schools throughout the autumn term to help understand what the new RSHE 2025 guidance means for them. Please email Russell via russell@schoolhwb.co.uk to find out more about online training programme or twilight staff training options.