An RSE policy checklist for 2026

The 2025 RSHE statutory guidance has applied in England since 1 September. So this is no longer a planning exercise. If your policy has not been through a proper review, you are teaching under guidance your policy was not written for, and the first person to notice will probably be a parent asking to see something.

Schools “must have regard to the guidance, and where they depart from those parts of the guidance which state that they should (or should not) do something they will need to have good reasons for doing so” (paragraph 5). You can do things differently, as long as you can say why. The catch is that a departure nobody wrote down is very hard to defend a year later, when the person who made the decision has moved on.

If you want the wider review — teaching, policy and parent information — there is a step-by-step way to review your RSE against the guidance. This post is the narrower job: what to check now that term has started.

If you would rather work through it on paper than on screen, the same checks are on a printable two-page audit sheet with room for your notes. It is free and there is nothing to sign up for.

The four that actually catch schools out

Your contracts with external providers

Schools “should not agree to any contractual restrictions on showing parents any content that the school will use”, and where clauses exist that try to prevent a school sharing any material at all with parents, “they are void and unenforceable” (paragraphs 57 and 58). Pull out every licence and contract for bought-in RSHE material and read the sharing terms. If a provider will not budge, you need time to find another, and that time is this term rather than the week a request arrives. Copyright still governs how you share material, through a parent portal or a presentation rather than an open download, but it “should never be used as a reason to refuse to share” (paragraphs 59 and 60).

A policy you can hold against a timetable

The guidance says the policy should set out “the subject content, how and when it will be taught, and who is responsible for teaching it, including any external providers the school will use” (paragraph 14). Plenty of policies describe the subject beautifully and never say which term it happens in or whose job it is. A policy you cannot hold against this year’s plan cannot be monitored, which makes the monitoring section of the same paragraph impossible to answer honestly.

Sequencing, not just coverage

Schools should sequence teaching so pupils are “equipped with the knowledge to navigate different experiences in a positive way before they occur, and to prevent harms” (paragraph 15d). A coverage map that ticks every topic somewhere can still fail this. The clearest example in the guidance is menstruation: the average age of onset is twelve, but periods can start at eight, so the content needs to land before that rather than in the summer term of Year 6 (the primary developing bodies content, printed page 25). Apply the same question to nudes, to pornography, to consent.

Suicide prevention has a precondition

Secondary schools should consider how to address suicide prevention safely, and before doing it directly with pupils they should consult mental health professionals and “put in place high quality, evidence-based staff training” (paragraph 44). I have seen schools add the topic to the scheme of work without the training, which is the wrong way round. The guidance asks the same care for eating disorders and self-harm (paragraphs 42 and 46).

The content that is new or sharper

Worth a specific look in your scheme of work, because these are the items schools most often find missing: deepfakes and how to identify them; sextortion; strangulation and suffocation as criminal offences; the influence of incels and online influencers on sexual ethics; gambling-like content inside gaming; vaping named separately from smoking; reproductive health including fertility, menopause, miscarriage and pregnancy loss. Several of these sit in the nudes, sextortion and deepfakes post in more detail.

The guidance also leans harder on skills than the 2019 version did. Pupils need chances to practise assertiveness, expressing needs and boundaries, and respectful communication, so they can use them in real situations (paragraph 50). Knowledge-only units will look thin against that.

The checklist

Work down this with the policy open and one term’s planning beside it. Answer each with a document rather than a recollection. Items marked as a must are stated that way in the guidance; the rest are shoulds, which you can depart from with reasons you have written down.

On the policy document itself:

• An up-to-date written policy exists. All schools must have one for relationships education, or for RSE where sex education is taught (paragraph 12).
• It is published on the school website, and the office knows how to send a free copy to anyone who asks. Both are musts (paragraph 12).
• The version on the website matches the version staff teach from.
• It names content, timing, staffing and external providers; separates relationships education from sex education; covers the right to withdraw; explains SEND accessibility; describes monitoring; sets out how parents view materials; says how teachers handle questions the curriculum does not answer; and records who approved it and when it is reviewed (paragraph 14).

On parents:

• Parents were consulted on the policy, and there is a dated record of what they raised and what changed. Schools must proactively engage and consult (paragraph 12). If that is the gap, how to run the consultation is its own piece of work.
• A parent asking today could be shown a representative sample of resources, and all materials on request (paragraph 56).
• Every provider contract has been read for restrictive sharing clauses (paragraphs 57 and 58).
• Primary only: parents were consulted on sex education content specifically, and offered help talking to their children about it (paragraph 31).
• Withdrawal is handled as the guidance describes, including the head teacher’s discussion with parents, the record of it, purposeful work for withdrawn pupils, and pupils knowing they can opt back in from three terms before they turn 16 (paragraphs 17 to 20). I have written separately on the right to withdraw, which behaves differently in primary and secondary.

On the curriculum:

• A coverage map runs the guidance’s content tables against your scheme of work, showing where each item is taught and by whom. If you build one thing this year, build this.
• The map shows when each item is taught, not only that it is, and the sensitive content lands before pupils are likely to meet it (paragraph 15d).
• RSHE has been checked against science, citizenship, computing and PE so the subjects complement rather than duplicate (paragraph 51).
• There is some evidence of what pupils took away from a unit. The guidance folds this into curriculum design rather than asking for a separate system (paragraph 50).

On the people teaching it:

• Staff teaching RSHE this year have had training that matches what they are teaching, including safeguarding, given the increased possibility of disclosures (paragraph 15f).
• Anyone teaching suicide prevention, self-harm or eating disorders has the specific preparation described above (paragraphs 42 to 46).
• For every visitor booked this year, someone checked the credentials, saw the lesson plan in advance, and agreed in writing how a disclosure in that session is handled. That last one is a must (paragraphs 52 and 84).
• Teachers know what to say to a question the scheme does not cover, and it matches what the policy claims they will say (paragraph 87).

On equality and governance:

• Teaching complies with the Equality Act 2010 and, for state-funded schools, the public sector equality duty, and does not discriminate or amount to harassment. Independent schools that are not academies are not subject to the PSED (paragraphs 64 and 65, and footnote 13).
• Staff teaching the content on sexual orientation, biological sex and gender reassignment have read paragraphs 67 to 72 rather than a summary of them. The expectations there are specific, including that same-sex relationships are integrated through the programme rather than taught as a standalone lesson, and that schools do not endorse contested views as fact (paragraphs 67 to 72).
• Governors or trustees can answer the four things the guidance asks of them: pupil progress, accessibility for pupils with SEND, alignment of content and materials with the guidance, and clear information for parents (paragraph 61). If you are briefing a governing board, the questions governors ask covers the ones that come up.

Finishing the list gives you a record of what you found on a particular date, against the passages named here. Worth keeping: it is evidence of the monitoring paragraph 14 asks your policy to describe, which is the part a policy on its own cannot evidence. The printable audit sheet has space for the date, who did it and what they found. It is not legal certification, and a specific situation may need your own legal advice.

The pattern is usually the same: the policy needs a paragraph or two, and the coverage map is the real job. If that map is the part with no obvious owner, talk to us about your RSE policy and curriculum planning.

Trusted resources

• Relationships Education, Relationships and Sex Education (RSE) and Health Education, DfE, July 2025. Policy requirements at printed pages 4 to 5; openness with parents at printed pages 33 to 34.
• The DfE publication page, which confirms the version in force in England.
• Keeping children safe in education, which the RSHE guidance asks schools to read alongside it.