Schools across England are now working against a firm deadline: the PSHE curriculum UK requirements have been updated, and every school must reflect the new statutory RSHE guidance by September 2026. For PSHE leads and senior leaders, that window is shorter than it looks.
Whether you’re auditing an existing programme or building something new, this checklist will help you understand what’s changed, what’s required, and how to plan your PSHE lessons with confidence.
What’s changed in the new RSHE Guidance – and what it means for your PSHE Curriculum
In July 2025, the Department for Education published updated statutory guidance for Relationships, Sex and Health Education, the first significant update since 2019. This isn’t a light refresh. The new guidance is broader in scope, more explicit about content, and clearer about the skills, not just knowledge, that young people need to leave school with.
Key shifts include:
- A stronger emphasis on prevention, explicitly linking high-quality relationships education to safeguarding and disclosure.
- Deeper content on healthy relationships, including communication, boundaries, and recognising coercive or violent behaviour, with strangulation and suffocation now cited as criminal offences.
- Greater integration of online and offline worlds, including content on AI, data use, and age-restricted platforms.
- Emotional regulation and mental wellbeing woven throughout, in step with the NHS Prevention Programme.
- New guidance on sensitive topics such as eating disorders and suicide, with practical support for educators.
- Removal of prescriptive age restrictions, giving schools more flexibility to respond to the needs of their specific community.
These changes affect both primary and secondary schools, with Relationships Education statutory from KS1 and RSHE statutory through KS4.
Free Webinar: Are You Ready for the New RSHE Requirements on Digital Safety and AI?
Join us on Wednesday 7 May, 3.30pm to 4.30pm for a free webinar unpacking what the new guidance means for digital safety and AI in your school. We’ll walk through what’s required, what good delivery looks like, and how to get your curriculum ready.
What does this mean for your PSHE lessons?
For PSHE leads, the updated RSHE guidance creates both an opportunity and a responsibility. PSHE lessons are the primary vehicle for delivering much of this content, and the guidance is clear that delivery quality matters as much as content coverage.
The guidance explicitly calls for:
- Participatory and interactive lesson design.
- Skilled facilitation, not just information delivery.
- Meaningful pupil engagement in curriculum development.
- Parental consultation and transparency.
- A whole-school approach that embeds RSHE across the school community.
If your current PSHE lessons rely primarily on worksheets, videos, or one-off assemblies, the new guidance is a clear signal to rethink your approach.
Your PSHE curriculum UK checklist for 2026
Use this as a practical starting point for your planning between now and September 2026.
1. Audit your existing PSHE curriculum
- Map your current provision against the new RSHE statutory requirements.
- Identify content gaps across year groups.
- Note areas where delivery method, not just content, may need updating.
2. Review how your PSHE lessons are delivered
- Who is currently delivering RSHE in your school? Specialist teachers, form tutors, or a mix?
- Do all staff delivering PSHE lessons feel adequately trained, particularly for sensitive topics?
- Does your delivery model reflect a genuine whole-school approach?
3. Engage pupils and parents
- The guidance explicitly requires schools to consult pupils on curriculum relevance.
- Update or create your RSHE policy and publish it accessibly for parents.
- Plan how and when you will hold parent briefings on the changes.
4. Protect curriculum time
- Audit how much timetabled time is currently allocated to PSHE lessons.
- Research from the Sex Education Forum shows many young people already feel there isn’t enough time for RSHE.
- Identify whether cross-curricular delivery in subjects like Science, English, and Computing can supplement core provision.
5. Source quality resources and training
- Ensure lesson materials are updated to reflect the new RSHE guidance.
- Identify CPD needs for staff, especially those covering sensitive topics for the first time.
- Consider specialist external support for complex or high-impact topics.
Get Support Implementing the New PSHE Curriculum UK Requirements
Life Lessons is the leading provider of Whole School Wellbeing and Healthy Relationships Education in the UK. Our materials are fully updated to reflect the new RSHE guidance, and we work directly with schools to make implementation feel manageable, not overwhelming.
We’ve supported hundreds of schools through curriculum change. We understand the pressures on PSHE leads and senior leadership teams. And we know that the best PSHE curriculum isn’t built in a weekend, it’s built with the right support.
Not sure where to start? Join our free webinar on 7 May — Are You Ready for the New RSHE Requirements on Digital Safety and AI? — and hear directly from our team on what the changes mean in practice.
If you’d like to talk about what this means for your school, get in touch with the Life Lessons team. We’ll help you understand where you are, where you need to get to, and how to build a PSHE curriculum that genuinely serves your young people.
Life Lessons Education is committed to working with schools to support the successful implementation of the new RSHE guidance. For updates, resources, and events tailored to primary and secondary schools, sign up to our newsletter.
