Relationships, Sex and Health Education (RSHE) at The Edge
Relationships, Sex and Health Education is a statutory subject in all secondary schools. At The Edge it sits within our Life Skills curriculum and is shaped by our core principles of being Safe, Ready and Respectful. We teach RSHE because we want our pupils to have the knowledge, skills and confidence to form healthy relationships, look after their own wellbeing, and navigate the world they actually live in, including the parts of it that are complicated, online, or neither straightforwardly good nor bad. That means honest, age-appropriate teaching on topics including consent and healthy relationships, sexual health, personal safety, and the pressures young people face from social media, pornography, and online culture.
Our RSHE curriculum has been updated for September 2026 in line with the government’s revised statutory guidance, published in July 2025. The new guidance significantly expands the content schools are required to cover, reflecting how much the landscape for young people has changed. At The Edge this means we now specifically address topics such as misogyny and incel culture, AI-generated images and deepfakes, sextortion and online financial harms, HIV prevention, menstrual and gynaecological health, and Gillick competence and young people’s rights around medical consent. Our curriculum follows a spiral approach, revisiting themes at increasing depth across year groups, and is delivered primarily through Life Skills lessons by trained staff, with support from specialist external providers where appropriate.
We are committed to being open with parents and carers about what we teach and why. You have the right to view a representative sample of the materials we use, and we can share these at parent events throughout the year. Parents and carers also have the right to request withdrawal from the sex education elements of RSHE, though not from relationships or health education. If you are considering this, we ask that you contact us first so we can talk it through. Our RSHE policy sets out everything in full, and year-group parent guides explain what your child will be covering term by term.
For more detail, the links below take you to our full RSHE policy, the long-term curriculum plans for Life Skills, a year 10 RSE parent guide, a year 11 RSE parent guide , the RSE parent letter we send at the start of the topic, and some example teaching resources. If you have any questions or concerns, please get in touch with Charlotte Poynton, Vice Principal, on 0121 533 5858 or at charlotte.poynton@theedgeacademy.co.uk