On 15 July 2025, the Department for Education (DfE) released new statutory guidance for Relationships, Sex and Health Education (RSHE) in England. Following months of anxiety generated by the draft guidance earlier in the year, many in the sector expressed relief at its more moderate tone. Yet relief should not slide into complacency. While the final guidance is less extreme than its predecessor, and the relief is understandable, it still contains notable shortcomings and falls short of what is needed to support meaningful and inclusive RSHE.
In this blog, we offer a summary of our reflections on the newly released RSHE guidance. As researchers and educators committed to promoting ethical, reflective and rights-based RSHE, we offer this response through the lens of safe uncertainty. This framework recognises that teaching about sex, relationships and identity inevitably involves navigating uncertainty, discomfort and disagreement. Rather than avoiding this, safe uncertainty supports educators to scaffold complexity and create relationally safe but intellectually open classroom environments. To learn more about safe uncertainty and its application to RSHE, please see here:
And for a full critique and an articulation of how the safe uncertainty framework can support educators to implement, extend and build upon the guidance, see our accompanying long read here:
The good news: Positive alignments with safe uncertainty
There are notable strengths in the new guidance. We welcome the emphasis on skills—not just knowledge—as well as the inclusion of emotional literacy, brain development, period products and the need to challenge misinformation. There is recognition that RSHE should support the development of ethical behaviour, emotional regulation and relationship skills through a positive, strengths-based approach to sexual and relational wellbeing.
Of particular value is the guidance’s attention to self-relationship and consent as relational and ethical, not merely legal. These elements resonate with our safe uncertainty principles. We also appreciate the explicit mention of peer influence, power dynamics and social scripts, which offers a more nuanced framing that moves beyond simplistic risk messaging and reductive narratives.
What’s missing or muddled: Missed opportunities and problematic framings
Despite these strengths, significant gaps remain. The absence of any commitment to post-16 RSHE is troubling, particularly given that many young people legally begin their sexual lives at this age. Meanwhile, online contexts are presented in predominantly negative terms, undermining the stated commitment to parity between online and offline behaviour. The guidance warns against shame and victim-blaming yet does little to move beyond harm framings, in turn discouraging young people from speaking openly about their digital lives.
On pornography, the guidance simply rehashes the government’s recent pornography review. Once again, there is no recognition of the complexity of young people’s engagements, nor of how these artefacts shape—yet do not determine—their sexual understandings. Instead of fear-based messaging, we advocate for a reflective, dialogic approach that explores the meaning young people attach to these materials.
There is also a notable omission of children’s rights. While Gillick competence is mentioned in relation to health decisions, its role in sexual health is downplayed. The fact that young people under 16 can access contraception and advice without parental consent is a legal reality that too few teachers understand. This gap has serious implications for how RSHE is taught and how young people access care.
Supporting educators through safe uncertainty
The guidance encourages schools to engage pupils in shaping their curriculum and learning. This is a welcome step, but it must go beyond tokenism. Participatory RSHE requires time, trust and teacher confidence. Many teachers are understandably anxious about opening up space for student questions or experiences, fearing controversy or harm. Safe uncertainty helps educators navigate this: not by endorsing every view expressed, but by creating space for exploration, questioning and reframing.
In relation to gender, the guidance offers a cautious treatment. On one hand, it calls for education on misogyny and sexual violence; on the other, it advises schools not to teach that everyone has a gender identity. This political tightrope risks producing silence or avoidance in classrooms. Safe uncertainty offers a way forward, enabling educators to address gender norms and inequalities without polarisation or dogma.
What we really mean by skills
The guidance talks a lot about skills, but tends to treat them as fixed, transferable assets. In reality, how young people draw on skills in the moment is shaped by emotional, relational and cultural conditions. A young person may know what they ‘should’ do in theory, but not feel able to act when it matters most. We need to teach skills contextually, alongside critical reflection and ethical reasoning.
This is where sexual citizenship becomes crucial. Sexual citizenship invites young people to consider what kinds of relationships and sexual lives they want to lead and what responsibilities and values this entails. It encourages them to think about the pressures they face, the relationships they’re part of, and the ways they can act with care and autonomy. It also makes room for ambivalence, uncertainty and contradiction, all things young people often experience but struggle to articulate.
Building capacity: For educators and for the curriculum
Educators are being asked to deliver a highly sensitive curriculum in a rapidly changing world. From AI to incels, from gender identity to deepfakes, teachers are confronting issues that feel unsettled even among adults. Safe uncertainty does not ask teachers to be experts in everything; it supports them to hold space for uncertainty, offer guidance without rigidity, and model reflection rather than certainty.
To support this, we will be releasing a series of practitioner-facing resources, including our forthcoming book and accompanying “Not Lesson Plans” for the 2025/26 school year. These will offer practical, adaptable tools for implementing safe uncertainty in the classroom.
The way forward
RSHE must be more than a tick-box exercise in harm prevention. It should be an invitation to develop ethical awareness, relational depth and critical capacities. The new guidance leaves this promise unfulfilled, but there is still time to act.
We urge policymakers, educators and practitioners to embed the principles of safe uncertainty into RSHE delivery. Only then can we equip young people not just with knowledge, but with the curiosity, care and courage needed to navigate their relational lives.