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<p>The Department is working closely with over 1600 schools across the country who
are acting, on a voluntary basis, as early adopters of relationships education; relationships
and sex education (RSE); and health education. As early adopters, these schools have
indicated their intention to start teaching the new requirements: relationships education
(for primary aged pupils), RSE (for secondary aged pupils) and health education (all
pupils in state-funded schools), during the academic year 2019/20, ahead of the subjects
being compulsory from September 2020.</p><p> </p><p>The Department has been working
closely with these early adopter schools to develop a programme of support. Recently
four national conferences took place (including for 229 early adopter schools based
in the North West London and South Central Region), to help early adopters plan for
delivery of the new subjects, and to enable the Department to learn about their current
practices and assess support needs. Following feedback from the conferences, consideration
is being given to what further regional support may be required.</p><p> </p><p>This
engagement with early adopter schools is helping the Department develop its programme
of support for the new subjects, which will be available to all teachers from spring
2020. The programme will focus on tools that improve schools’ practice and will offer
opportunities for teachers to improve subject knowledge, build confidence and share
best practice. This support will be accessed through a new online service and will
include an implementation guide, which will accompany the statutory guidance, case
studies from early adopter schools, and innovative materials to support staff training.
We will continue to test this package with early adopter schools.</p><p> </p>
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