Sex education is likely to be made compulsory in all schools and broadened to include sexting and pornography after concerns that social media is encouraging the harassment of girls.
Justine Greening, the education secretary, has instructed her department to work on plans to overturn an exemption that means academies and free schools do not have to offer sex and relationships education.
Official guidance, which schools must consider when developing lessons on this topic, would also be updated to cover topics such as sexting, pornography, sexual consent and domestic violence. An investigation by The Times this year found 1,218 instances of pupils sending sexual or indecent images via a mobile phone, webcam, digital camera or website in 50 secondary schools in the past three years.
Cases included a girl of 13 sending explicit videos to an “unknown male” via Facebook and an incident linked to suspected gang grooming. The disclosures intensified pressure on ministers to act.
A government source stressed yesterday that it was not considering removing the right of parents to withdraw their children from sex and relationships lessons. As well as the science of reproduction, a separate topic, sex and relationships education, must be taught in local authority secondary schools in line with DfE guidance. However, almost two thirds of secondary schools are now academies or free schools and are exempt from this requirement.
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As recently as February, Nicky Morgan, as education secretary, rejected calls for personal, social health and economic education, which includes sex education, to be mandatory in all schools, saying that the vast majority did offer it and improving its quality was the most pressing problem.
Ms Greening, who replaced her in July, has taken a different approach and may make amendments to the Children and Social Work Bill, which is at its committee stage in the Commons, The Sunday Times reported.
Labour and many educationalists have long supported making the topic compulsory but pressure has been growing among Conservatives, led by the former cabinet minister Maria Miller, chairwoman of the Commons women and equalities select committee.
Its inquiry into sexual harassment in schools, published in the autumn, found that three quarters of girls in their late teens heard names such as “slut”, “bitch” and “slag” several times a week yet many boys dismissed such terminology as banter. A survey found that it was normal for girls to be slapped on their bottoms and that naked pictures of girls shared with their boyfriends were often circulated among boys.
A DfE spokeswoman said: “High-quality education on sex and relationships is a vital part of preparing young people for success in adult life.
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“[The topic] is compulsory in all maintained secondary schools, and many academies and free schools teach it as part of the curriculum. However, we are actively looking at options to ensure that all children have access to high-quality teaching of these subjects.”