Changes to the statutory Relationships & Health Education curriculum

The Department for Education announced changes to the Relationship & Health Education (RHE) curriculum.  These changes become statutory from September 2026.

In order to ensure parents are fully aware of these changes and how we will incorporate these changes sensitively into our curriculum, we want to share the changes.  These changes have been supported by our QIS (Quran & Islamic Studies) to ensure any changes are respectful towards our school's faith distinction.    

Our face-to-face consultation with parents was held on Monday, 10th July 2026.  The following questions were asked by parents and answered by the school staff:

What do children learn in online safety lessons?
Children are taught how to spot for scams, phishing emails and how to recognise misinformation and disinformation.  They are taught about not sharing personal information and to spot the signs of someone behaving inappropriately.

What scheme does the school use for RHE and PSHE, and how do you know it is suitable?
We use a scheme called SCARF, which is written by experts.  This ensures we have a curriculum that fully complies with the national curriculum expectations.  It is fully resourced and teachers are provided with detailed planning to support the delivery.  All of the plans are reviewed by our QIS team to ensure they adhere to our faith distinctiveness; our QIS team also provide teachers with advice on how to approach certain topics from an Islamic perspective.

How do you teach about body parts and puberty?
We teach about puberty, body parts and name them in Year 5 and 6.  These lessons are taught in single-sex classes and are delivered by Muslim NHS doctors supported by members of the QIS team.  There are occasions when conversations need to happen before Year 5 or Year 6; these are done on a case-by-case basis with members of the QIS team.

Below you will find documents that show the changes to the curriculum.