Suicide: Personal, Social, Health and Economic Education
The question
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what plans her Department has to evaluate the implementation of age-appropriate suicide prevention and mental health education within Relationships, Sex and Health Education in schools; and what support is available to schools to ensure staff deliver that content safely.
Answered by Department for Education
The statutory relationships, sex and health education (RSHE) curriculum includes content on mental wellbeing, resilience, recognising signs of poor mental health, and how to access support. Schools are responsible for determining how this content is taught in an age-appropriate manner and for ensuring staff are appropriately supported. We have been clear that schools should consult mental health professionals and put in place high quality, evidence-based staff training before addressing suicide directly with secondary aged pupils, to ensure that staff have the knowledge and skills to do it safely.
We do not monitor provision of RSHE, but the subjects are considered in Ofsted inspections under the personal development judgement. Inspectors make a professional judgement on whether the school is providing appropriate and effective teaching and delivering against the requirements in the RSHE statutory guidance.
More broadly, the department is investing in mental health support for children and young people through measures including Mental Health Support Teams and senior mental health lead training.
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