Labour scraps proposed ban on sex education for children under nine

Telegraph

15-07-2025

Labour will scrap plans to ban children under the age of nine from being taught sex education.
New statutory guidance, to be published on Tuesday, will water down Tory proposals that would have ensured pupils in England were taught the subject 'no earlier than Year 5'.
The updated relationships, sex and health education [RSHE] curriculum will instead 'recommend' that pupils are not taught sex education until the final two years of primary education, but schools will be free to teach children earlier if they choose.
It will also ditch proposals by the previous government to place an age restriction on lessons about extreme sexual violence.
Draft Tory guidance, published last year, said that while it was important for pupils under the age of 13 to 'understand the key principles around sexual offences and violence, for example the importance of understanding what consent means, schools should not teach about this in any sexually explicit way before Year 9'.
Bridget Phillipson, the Education Secretary, told the Daily Mail: 'My view is that that is too late. Of course, we need to do things in an age-appropriate way, but lots of teenage girls in particular have already been exposed to serious harm both in teenage relationships and also online by that age.'
Ms Phillipson has faced a backlash over delays to the new sex education curriculum, which comes more than a year after the closure of a public consultation into the draft Tory guidance.
Laura Trott, the shadow education secretary, said: 'More than a year late, and only under pressure, the Education Secretary has finally published guidance she once dismissed as 'partisan'.
'It's not 'partisan' to want to protect children from age-inappropriate content. Yet this guidance weakens key safeguards, scrapping protections that prevented under-nines being taught about sex.'
'Partisan and unnecessary language'
Last year, Ms Phillipson said the Tories' proposed sex education guidance 'drifted far too much into partisan and unnecessary language' and that she would ' stop this being a political football '.
However, Labour's version will take a similar stance on gender identity and prohibit it from being taught as fact, The Telegraphhas been told.
The updated RSHE curriculum will say that schools should inform pupils about the facts and law around biological sex and gender reassignment, but 'not to teach contested issues as fact', a Whitehall source said.
It is unclear whether this means schools will still be able to host lessons discussing views on gender identity while presenting them as opinions.
Last year, Sir Keir Starmer told The Telegraph that he was 'not in favour of ideology being taught in our schools on gender'.
The previous Conservative government called for a ban on gender identity being taught in schools altogether, which attracted criticism from Labour MPs.
Draft Tory guidance, published ahead of the general election, stated that while children should be taught the law around gender reassignment, 'schools should not teach about the broader concept of gender identity'.
Challenging 'manosphere myths'
Teachers will now be told to focus on issues such as pornography and harmful deepfakes under the new statutory guidance, which will come into effect from September 2026.
Pupils will also be offered lessons on 'incels' – shorthand for 'involuntary celibates' – as part of efforts to combat misogyny and the influence of figures such as Andrew Tate.
The Department for Education (DfE) said the guidance would instead help boys identify positive role models, 'and challenge myths about women and relationships that are spread online in the 'manosphere' – without stigmatising boys for being boys'.
Ms Phillipson said: 'I want our children to be equipped to defy the malign forces that exist online.
'Schools and parents alike have a vital role to play, helping children identify positive role models and resist the manipulation too often used online to groom impressionable young minds.'
The Government is yet to say whether it will ditch Tory proposals for parents to view all sex education material.
The DfE said separate guidance for gender-questioning children would be published at a later date.
Writing for The Telegraph ahead of the release, the Children's Commissioner said topics such as pornography should be taught 'with parents' involvement'.
Dame Rachel de Souza said: 'Taught appropriately, sensitively, with parents' involvement and with safety at the heart of every lesson, these changes to the curriculum give children the best chance of protecting themselves from a very real and present danger.
'But let me be clear: a strong curriculum is only as good as those who teach it. Badly taught RSHE can be even more damaging than no RSHE at all. Good teachers – the foundation of every child's education – are never more important than with subjects as open to misinterpretation as these.'
She also called for a recruitment drive for specialists to teach RSHE, which became compulsory in 2020.
These changes give children the best chance of protecting themselves
By Dame Rachel de Souza
It is a hard truth to accept: it is normal for children to see awful, scary things online – and as adults, we have the task of protecting them. That includes talking to them about the things they see, reassuring them without shame or judgment.
Those conversations must start at home, because parents are a child's first teacher, no matter how strange or awkward it feels. Children tell me they want their parents to set clear boundaries and to talk to them openly and regularly about what they are seeing – what it means, and why it's not real.
When I became Children's Commissioner four years ago, I asked young children about the kind of content they saw online, where they saw it and when. Back then, it shocked me to learn that children were seeing pornography on mainstream social media sites, and one in 10 had seen it by the age of nine.
Extreme acts of violence, slapping and choking are just some types of porn children were seeing back then – but I now know that even more worrying acts are being depicted and fed to children in the online world.
Abject failures
Today, it still shocks me – but sadly, it no longer surprises me how far we still are from eliminating this risk. It's frightening. This summer, I will update my work on children's access to pornography to see what, if any, progress is being made to tackle this early exposure – but early indications are not reassuring. In fact, early analysis of this research suggests that any changes by technology companies to make it harder to see pornography online have been abject failures. July 25th, which heralds the enforcement of Ofcom's rules to protect children from content like this, cannot come soon enough.
It is the fault of the pornography and technology industries that young primary school children are seeing pornography online. But there is more we could be doing offline to support them to manage what is proving to be one of the biggest risks to their childhoods. That's why I'm so pleased to see some of the changes in the updated Relationships, Sex and Health Education (RSHE) guidance published today, many of which have been made in response to my research and recommendations – and in response to what children have told me they want to be learning, to help make sense of the world they live in today.
As a former RSE teacher, I've long advocated for high-quality, age-appropriate RSHE that starts early and evolves as children mature. RSHE is so much more than just 'sex education': it can teach empathy, respect and the kind of critical thinking that helps young people understand what they are seeing and why it is harmful. Children have told me they want to learn about how to be in a successful relationship, how to maintain these into their adult lives and what healthy emotional development looks like. Without that, and without those same conversations started by parents at home continuing at school, we risk young people learning about sex and relationships from TikTok, Snapchat or porn sites – or not being able to spot the signs of abuse or to ask for help.
The stark truth
The new guidance will now allow subjects to be introduced in the safety of the classroom, that children told me they wanted on the curriculum to reflect the world they live in, like the prevalence of choking pornography. It will teach them that non-fatal strangulation is not only a criminal offence, but that it isn't normal in sexual relations. It will remove age restrictions on when some of these subjects are first introduced, specifically on topics like online pornography. Given the large numbers of children who see porn before they reach secondary school, it would not be appropriate to delay educating children about it until they are that age.
Some will argue that even late primary school – age nine or 10 – is too young to discuss concepts like naked images or pornography. I hear them. Childhood is short and precious – who could blame a parent for wanting to keep their child innocent forever?
But the stark truth is that most parents underestimate just how much harmful content is available to our children without them even having to search for it. Many – understandably – cannot fathom the extreme versions of sexual or violent content it's possible for a nine-year-old to stumble upon in just a few quick clicks, helped by rapidly advancing tech and clever algorithms.
Of course, that doesn't mean giving a nine-year-old a detailed explanation about the concept of pornography. It will allow teachers to explain why it might make them feel uncomfortable and gently guide them away from the content they've seen.
Education is a crucial tool in the fight to protect our children online and create a generation that is respectful, tolerant and fair-minded.
In the absence of moral leadership from the companies running these platforms, and slow progress from regulators to hold them accountable, it is more important than ever.
Real and present danger
Taught appropriately, sensitively, with parents' involvement and with safety at the heart of every lesson, these changes to the curriculum will give them the best chance of protecting themselves from a very real and present danger.
But let me be clear: a strong curriculum is only as good as those who teach it. Badly taught RSHE can be even more damaging than no RSHE at all. Good teachers – the foundation of every child's education – are never more important than with subjects as open to misinterpretation as these. We only have to look at the soaring rates of sexually transmitted infections among young people – 43,000 under-20s were diagnosed with a new case last year alone – to see where ineffective sex education can be damaging.
So that's why, while celebrating a decision that has genuinely acted in response to children's views and experiences, I also urge the government not to lose sight of the primacy of quality and safety.
We need more great teachers to be able to specialise in RSHE as they do in other subjects, and for the RSHE training they receive to be regular, high-quality and connected with other local services so that risks are identified and tackled.
And I want schools to continue proactively working with parents, together making safeguarding a primary focus in this new curriculum – and with every school safeguarding lead taking an active role in curating the content. Parents and children deserve to be confident that any resource, and any discussion, is designed to protect young minds.
Education is the closest thing we have to a silver bullet – but it cannot perform miracles in isolation. Now we need accountability from the tech companies who refuse to acknowledge their complicity in the harms perpetrated against children online, from those who still allow harmful content to be hosted freely online.
A responsive, modern curriculum can never replace the need for safety at the source.