Personal, Social, Relationships, Sex & Health Education

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We consulted parents and carers, at Ebbsfleet Green, in March, 2026.

At Ebbsfleet Green, sex education is taught, primarily, through our science curriculum and parents and carers are not allowed to opt their children out of these lessons. 

Parents and carers are not allowed to opt their children out of the personal, social, relationships or health education of our curriculum.  However, they are allowed to opt their children out of anything associated with sex/gender which is taught through P.S.H.E. and R.S.E.  This is the non-statutory component of our curriculum, of which there is very little.

Parents and carers are encouraged to talk to the class teacher who will be happy to share the contents of the learning, including individual lesson plans ensuring the content is clear. 

We follow the JIGSAW PSHE Scheme.  

Science

Statutory Requirements: The National Curriculum for Science includes subject content in related areas: the main external body parts, the human body as it grows from birth to old age (including puberty) and reproduction in some plants and animals. These must be taught.

Learning about puberty and reproduction in some animals and plants happens in Year 5:

Statutory Requirements Y5:

The Human Life Cycle – Children draw a timeline to indicate stages in the growth and development of humans.  They should learn about the changes experienced in puberty.  Children should find out about different types of reproduction, including sexual and asexual reproduction in plants and in sexual reproduction in animals.

This is covered in our curriculum in:

Spring 1: What are the stages of growth in human beings?

Summer 1 and 2: What are the life processes of reproduction in some plants and animals?

Sex education is not compulsory in primary schools, however the Department for Education recommends that all primary schools teach age-appropriate sex education to ensure children are prepared for the changes adolescence brings and understand how human life begins.

Personal, Social, Relationships, Sex and Health Education

At Ebbsfleet Green Primary School our approach to sex education is as follows:

Sex Education as part of PSHE (subject to parental withdrawal)

We teach age-appropriate sex education in Years 5 and 6 as part of our PSHE curriculum, going beyond the statutory content about puberty to include factual information about human reproduction (in line with DfE recommendation). We believe this information is important for children before they leave primary school, particularly as children naturally become more aware and curious about how life begins, and may seek information from less reliable sources if we do not provide age-appropriate, factual teaching.

We define sex education as learning about human reproduction. It is defined as those lessons covering sexual intercourse, conception, the stages of pregnancy and birth. It includes the emotional impact of having a baby as well as the physical facts. Sex education is not learning about different types of sexual activity. 

This is distinct from the statutory Health Education content about puberty and menstruation, and from Science curriculum content about life cycles and reproduction in mammals, from which children cannot be withdrawn.

The following Jigsaw lessons in the Changing Me Puzzle contain non-statutory sex education content:

Year 5: Conception

Year 6: Babies: Conception to Birth 

Parent Engagement and the Right to Withdraw from Sex Education

Parents have the right to request that their child be withdrawn from sex education taught as part of PSHE. Parents do NOT have the right to withdraw children from:

Relationships Education (statutory)

Health Education, including puberty education (statutory)

Science curriculum content, including content about reproduction (statutory)