Labour will scrap plans to stop schools from teaching sex education to pupils under the age of nine.
New statutory guidance on relationships, sex and health education (RSHE) removes a Tory commitment to ban the subject until at least Year Five.
Instead, it will be ‘recommended’ that pupils are not taught sex education until the last two years of primary school – but teachers will not be prohibited from covering it earlier.
In an exclusive interview with the Mail, Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson insisted children would still learn about reproduction and sexual health at secondary school.
Government sources said primary schools would only be able to deviate from the guidance and teach sex education before Year Five if it was in a child’s best interest.
But the Tories accused the Government of ‘scrapping protections that prevented under-nines being taught about sex’.
Last year, the then Conservative government published draft guidance which recommended that primary schools ‘teach sex education in years 5 or 6’.
It stated that ‘this should be taught no earlier than year 5’, and be ‘in line with what pupils learn about conception and birth as part of the national curriculum for science’.
But the updated RSHE guidance, published today [TUES], also recommends that ‘primaries teach sex education in years 5 and/or 6, in line with content about conception and birth’ – but does not contain any age restrictions on sex education.
Shadow education secretary Laura Trott told the Mail: ‘More than a year late, and only under pressure, the Education Secretary has finally published guidance she once dismissed as “partisan”.
‘It’s not “partisan” to want to protect children from age-inappropriate content. Yet this guidance weakens key safeguards, scrapping protections that prevented under-9s being taught about sex.
‘Parents do not want young children to be exposed to porn and sexual assault far too early. Age limits must be put in place.
‘And the DfE still hasn’t published vital guidance to protect gender-questioning children, a basic safeguard for women and girls. The Education Secretary says she wants to protect them, but without this guidance, the evidence says otherwise.’
A Government source hit back last night, saying the Government would ‘come down like a ton of bricks on any teacher abusing this flexibility for their own agenda’.
The Tory draft guidance also restricted schools from teaching about the details of violent abuse before Year 9.
But Ms Phillipson told the Mail: ‘My view is that that is too late. Of course we need to do things in an age appropriate way, but lots of teenage girls in particular have already been exposed to serious harm both in teenage relationships and also online by that age.
‘We need to meet young people where they are and the guidance has to survive contact with reality around young people’s lives.’
The updated guidance will include a focus on helping boys identify positive role models and challenge myths about women and relationships.
Secondary schools will also now teach about incel culture, AI, deepfakes and how pornography links to misogyny.
It also makes clear that parents should be able to view all RSHE curriculum materials on request, and schools should not agree to any restrictions that would prevent them sharing the content with parents.