Let’s Talk RSHE 2025!

You probably are already aware that on the 15th July, the Department for Education dropped the updated and long awaited statutory RSHE guidance. Schools have until 1st September 2026 to bring everything in line, although schools are welcome to adopt it sooner.

This new guidance replaces both the previously passed 2019 guidance and the 2024 draft guidance released by the previous government.

We have put together a short summary of some of the main changes that schools should be aware of.

What’s New? Why It Matters

1. Tackling Real Risks: Misogyny, Incel Culture & Deepfakes

The updated curriculum directly addresses incel ideology, links between pornography and misogyny, and the prevalence of AI-generated content and deepfakes. Secondary pupils will explore how to spot harmful myths and identify positive male role models instead.

2. Emotional Resilience & Mental Health

Both primary and secondary pupils are taught that feeling low or anxious is normal—and not automatically a mental health condition. The aim? Build resilience, not self diagnosis. Secondary schools must consult with mental health professionals on suicide prevention lessons to ensure safe delivery.

3. No Rigid Age Limits—Just Age Appropriate Judgment

The previous draft guidance had age limits on certain topics but these have now gone. That means that there are no longer rules on barring children under nine from sex education and schools have more flexibility on making calls themselves on when it is appropriate to teach topics. Instead, teaching should be tailored to your pupils’ needs, guided by what they’ve already experienced (e.g., if you believe that students may already have exposure to pornography) and aligned with your RSHE policy—and always communicated to parents in advance.

4. Gender & LGBTQ+ Content: Balance & Clarity

Primary schools are encouraged to include same-sex parents and diverse family types. Secondary schools tackle gender issues more directly but with caution: teaching the legal facts around biological sex and gender reassignment, while avoiding suggesting one view is “the truth”.

5. Broadened Curriculum Coverage

Expect to need to deliver new content on mis and disinformation, knife crime, conflict resolution, financial exploitation (like sextortion), menstrual and women’s health, bereavement, fire/water/road safety, and even online gambling.

What You Need to Do Now

Review Your Current RSHE/PSHE Curriculum

This is a good time to do an audit of your current curriculum. Where are you already covering new topics like digital harms, emotional wellbeing, and body language? Where might gaps exist? There are some useful tools available and the PSHE Association is updating their audit tools soon.

Update Your Policy & Consult With Parents

Revise your school’s RSHE policy to reflect the changes—especially around consent, mental health framing, and age-appropriate teaching. Be transparent: parents must be able to view all teaching materials on request, and external provider contracts can't limit that access.

Plan Staff Training and CPD

Teacher confidence is key. Training grants become available from early 2026, but it’s worth starting CPD now.

Make RSHE Safe, Relevant, and Positive

Focus less on fear-based messaging and more on participation, pupil voice, and safe environments. Encourage discussion, build representative content, and design lessons that leave lasting impact—rather than worry-inducing or stigmatizing students.

How Loudmouth can Help

We have been working with the new guidance and have programmes that can help you cover many of the new topics. We have programmes that cover misogyny, mental health, mis and disinformation, knife crime and sextortion. These can be great additions to your curriculum providing ways to open up the issues using our trained and experienced staff and then using our follow up resources to support your teachers to continue the learning in the classroom.

We provide a range of CPD training. We can come in to school to teach some new ideas and techniques and help your RSHE team to generate ideas on the new content that they will need to cover. We can also run online training sessions and provide short updates and information to support teachers to build confidence and skills in RSHE and understand the new guidance. In fact when schools book a Loudmouth programme they get a free place on an online CPD training session.

We can support you with information for parents. All of our programmes come with information to keep parents informed and equip them with knowledge and ideas on how they can communicate with their children on the topics covered and where to find further information and support.

If you would like to know more about how we can support you in complying with the new guidance then contact us on 0121 446 4880 or email us at enquiry@loudmouth.co.uk