What the 2026 guidance changes for primary RSE

The updated guidance came into force this month and, for primary schools, most of what it asks for is what you were already doing. The curriculum content is recognisably the same, and the work is an audit rather than a rebuild.

What did change comes in three kinds: a handful of new topics to find time for, a firmer line on safeguarding content and the vocabulary that supports it, and a shift in what a lesson is supposed to achieve.

What hasn’t changed

Relationships education is still compulsory across years 1 to 6. Sex education is still not compulsory in primary. Parents still have the right to request withdrawal from any sex education you do teach, and a primary head must still grant that request for anything outside the science curriculum (paragraph 18).

Much of families, caring friendships and being safe reads as it did in 2019. First aid, healthy eating and physical fitness are broadly untouched. If your scheme of work was solid last year, it’s still solid.

The additions that need curriculum time

Five that are straightforward to slot in:

• Personal safety is now a topic in its own right, covering hazards including fire, and risk around roads, railways including level crossings, and water, with the water safety code named.
• Change and loss, including bereavement, with the points that grief is a natural response and that everyone grieves differently.
• Vaping, alongside the existing drugs, alcohol and tobacco content, including that nicotine addiction also comes from products like pouches.
• Online financial harms, including gaming, video game monetisation, scams and fraud, plus why gambling sites and social media carry age restrictions. The minimum age for social media, currently 13, is now content pupils should know.
• More careful language on mental health. Pupils should understand that worrying and feeling down are normal, affect everyone at times, and are not in themselves a sign of a mental health condition. They should also learn that mental health problems are common and that early support helps.

Family structures get a wider list too, with young carers, kinship carers, adoptive parents and foster carers named alongside single parent families and same-sex parents.

Safeguarding content is firmer than it was

Primary relationships education should now equip children to recognise and report risks and abuse, and the guidance is specific that pupils should be able to recognise emotional, physical and sexual abuse. It adds that even very young children can be equipped to understand what counts as abusive behaviour and to trust their instincts about behaviour that doesn’t feel right (paragraph 27). Bullying content now explicitly includes derogatory terms relating to sex, race, disability or sexual orientation.

The route in is boundaries, privacy and children’s rights over their own bodies and personal information, which is also where the next change sits.

Correct names for body parts are now statutory content

A child who has the words for their own body can tell an adult what happened to them. That is why this is in the guidance, and the guidance says so directly: understanding the correct terms and being able to use them confidently is good safeguarding practice, and it can be taught as part of health education without describing any detail of sexual activity (paragraph 23).

The content names them, so there’s nothing left to interpret: penis, vulva, vagina, testicles, scrotum, nipples. It also attaches a skill. Pupils should understand that all of these parts of the body are private, and have skills to understand and express their own boundaries around them.

Many primaries have taught this for years. What’s new is the statutory backing, which is worth having in writing just in case a parent asks why it’s on the topic list. Menstruation belongs in the same planning conversation. The guidance notes that while the average age of onset is twelve, periods can start at eight, so teaching it before girls’ periods start stops it arriving as a shock.

Check out our guide to teaching puberty in primary schools for idea on how to cover these topics.

More skills, not just more knowledge

Primary pupils are now expected to learn how to communicate effectively and manage conflict, how to be assertive and express needs and boundaries, and how to manage feelings including disappointment and frustration. They should have the chance to discuss the difference between being assertive and being controlling. Online, they should learn strategies for resisting pressure to share information or images. The guidance frames this at the top of the document too, with skilled delivery of participative education among the guiding principles (paragraph 15). One aim of each lesson should be that pupils practice the skill, not only hear about it.

Sex education now has a year group attached

Sex education remains optional in primary, but the recommendation is no longer general. The DfE recommends it in years 5 and/or 6, in line with the conception and birth content that sits in the national curriculum for science (paragraph 30). A school teaching none is now departing from a specific recommendation rather than a vague one, and should be able to articulate why.

Your policy now has to differentiate relationships education from sex education, so parents have clear information (paragraph 14). The right to withdraw is only applicable to sex education, so the science content and the health education content both sit outside it. And primary schools should consult parents specifically about the content of anything taught within sex education, including offering them support to talk to their children about it (paragraph 31). I’ve written more on this in how to consult parents on your RSE policy.

The late-primary discretion, and the condition attached to it

Schools may decide to discuss the pressure to share naked images in late primary where it’s affecting their pupils, and may address online sexual content where they know pupils have seen pornography (paragraph 29). Teaching should be age-appropriate and respectful of all children, including those with no familiarity with the topics at all.

Schools should inform parents in advance of any deviation from their published RSE policy and share the relevant materials on request.

Openness with parents has the sharpest edge

Schools should show parents a representative sample of the resources they plan to use (paragraph 56), with a parent portal named as best practice. Clauses in a provider’s contract that stop you sharing any material at all with parents are void and unenforceable, and copyright governs how you share materials rather than whether you do.

For most primaries this is the change that takes real work, because it means having the slides in a shareable state instead of in a shared drive. The parent consultation post covers how to run that.

What isn’t in it

The 2024 draft proposed hard age limits on when particular content could be taught. They aren’t in the final guidance. Sequencing sits with you, framed as careful sequencing and skilled delivery in the guiding principles, which also means the justification for your sequence has to be yours.

The dedicated SEND section is thinner than the 2019 one, with SEND expectations distributed through the document instead. Nobody hands you a model for adaptation, so your adapted materials are your own evidence that the curriculum is accessible. They’re worth keeping somewhere you can show them.

Where to start

Audit against the content lists first. It’s quick, and it tells you the size of the job.

Then take the two decisions that involve parents, because both need to be settled before you teach anything new: where sex education sits in years 5 and 6, with the boundary written into the policy, and whether the late-primary discretion applies to your school. Everything else on the list can be built during the year. These two are easier to carry with a topic list in the autumn than to explain to one parent in the spring.

If you’d like help auditing a primary curriculum against the new guidance or rewriting the policy around it, talk to us about RSE policy and curriculum planning.

Trusted resources

• Relationships Education, Relationships and Sex Education (RSE) and Health Education, DfE, July 2025. Primary relationships content starts at page 7; primary health and wellbeing at page 20.
• The DfE publication page, which confirms the version in force in England.
• An RSE policy checklist for 2026, for the rest of the review this feeds into.