Schools must own up about porn in sex education lessons - by Caroline ffiske
RECENTLY the Daily Mail covered a story about the Personal, Social and Health Education (PSHE) homework that an 11-year-old Hull schoolgirl took home. Her year group had been asked to define, amongst other things: soft porn, hard porn, transgender porn, and revenge porn.
A new heroine has emerged recently in the fight for the sanity and safety of our children. Conservative peer Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne has recently written a magnificant letter to Williamson regarding her concerns over his RSE Reforms.
Referring to the RSE Guidelines for secondary schools she writes: ‘LGBT is not mentioned with reference to teaching in secondary schools, but Gender Identity is.’ She quotes: ‘Pupils should be taught the facts and the law about sex, sexuality, sexual health, and gender identity in an age appropriate and inclusive way.’ She poses the crucial question ‘What are the facts about gender identity?’ What indeed? Mr Williamson – how can children be taught the ‘facts’ about gender identity when no one knows what they are?
Baroness Nicholson continues: ‘Unfortunately, as offered, the Guidelines leave the door open for anyone to teach whatever they want at any age they consider appropriate . . . we must surely consider carefully the state’s role in telling schoolchildren that a bearded man with a penis can be a lesbian and any girls and boys deviating from 1950s gender norms are in the wrong body.’ We surely must.
The Baroness suggests a reform to the RSE requirements. Instead of being permissive, they should be restrictive: ‘Teach this; no more; no less’. I worry that, given the snail’s pace at which government works, this suggestion, if accepted, could take considerable time, and Williamson’s reforms go live this September. But can anyone argue against the immediate requirement that schools publish all RSE materials on their websites? This will enable parents to vote with their heads, hearts, and feet. What possible argument can there be against this?
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Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne Conservative:
My Lords, I thank the Minister for the excellent educational material on sexual education for children in schools, which her department recently published. En passant, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Falkner, on her nomination as the next chair of the Equal Opportunities Commission. This material brings into sharp relief the previous advice that the Government seem to have been given by the Equal Opportunities Commission, which led the Department for Education to publish a decade-long sequence of materials, which vary greatly from the current new guidance. Is the Minister willing to have a meeting with me to discuss the detailed points of issue that I have raised?
My Lords, I, too, congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Falkner, on her appointment. I would be happy to meet with the noble Baroness. It is key to remember that the relationships and health education guidance that the department has put out was put out partly in response to the IICSA inquiry, which recommended that relationships education was a way to protect children so they would know what was a healthy relationship and when someone was perhaps approaching them for ulterior motives.
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The updated Dept for Education Policy can be found here, published on 24th September 2020.
"You should not reinforce harmful stereotypes, for instance by suggesting that children might be a different gender based on their personality and interests or the clothes they prefer to wear. Resources used in teaching about this topic must always be age-appropriate and evidence based. Materials which suggest that non-conformity to gender stereotypes should be seen as synonymous with having a different gender identity should not be used and you should not work with external agencies or organisations that produce such material."
- Creating a policy for the new curriculum
- Adapting an existing programme of study
- Deciding what to teach at primary and secondary level
- Teaching these subjects
- Planning your curriculum
- Using external agencies
- Choosing resources
- Creating an inclusive classroom
- Ensuring content is appropriate
- Dealing with sensitive issues
- Handling difficult questions
- Right to request withdrawal
- Identifying teachers’ needs
- Assessment and evaluation
