New statutory Relationships and Sex Education guidance issued for UK schools
/The new guidance (issued July 2025) includes particular emphasis on teaching the law.
Read the full guidance here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/687a3d473f4bde279ef4528c/RSHE_statutory_guidance_-_July_2025_.pdf
Teaching about the law
“The starting principle should be that applicable law should be taught in a factual way so that pupils are clear about their rights and responsibilities as citizens”.
This includes a number relating to topics covered in Online Media Law sessions for schools, such as:
The age of criminal responsibility
Consent and the age of consent
The Online Safety Act
Sexual abuse, harassment, stalking, and domestic violence, in a digital context
Grooming or exploiting children into criminal activity
Online behaviours including image and information sharing (including sexual imagery, youth-produced sexual imagery, nudes, etc, and including AI-generated sexual imagery and deepfakes). Pupils should understand the law about online sexual harassment and online sexual abuse including grooming and sextortion
Pornography including deep-fakes and non-consensual imagery (known as Image-Based Sexual Abuse)
Protected characteristics (age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex, sexual orientation)
Hate crime
Extremism / radicalisation
This is in addition to other online legal issues not explicitly mentioned in the guidance, such as defamation (libel) online, data protection, and copyright law.
Find out more here: https://www.onlinemedialawuk.com/schools