I wrote this on another thread recently, so have copied and pasted it here (in bold).
I am not a teacher but a parent and I would not recommend Jigsaw. Jigsaw was introduced into my youngest two children's primary school in September. During one of the first Jigsaw lessons that my 8yr old had he was taught about the importance of privacy/confidentiality. The children were asked to get into small groups and tell each other something about themselves that the others do not know. They were then asked to share the other's secret with the rest of the class but only if the other child wanted them to. The class were then taught that they need to keep other people's secrets. They were told that they should not tell their parents as they would tell other parents (in other words gossip) and that if the teacher found out they had told others then they would end up in Reflection (Supervision). After my son happened to mention something about how we need to keep secrets on the journey home that day, I questioned him and this is how I found out what he had been taught. I tried to gently find out how far he thought that he should go in keeping secrets for other. He believed that if another child told him that something was wrong in his/her life then he should try and persuade them to tell a teacher but that he shouldn't ever tell their secret. Even more devastatingly, my child now believed that if any adult was tickling him and hurting him but asked him to keep it a secret then he should. I had always taught him to come to me and to tell me anything and to not keep secrets but in one lesson everything I had said had been completely undermined and I feel that he had been placed at risk. It has taken me sometime to convince him that what the teacher was teaching is wrong.
I know that teaching confidentiality was the Jigsaw lesson plan that day and I now know that it part of the Jigsaw programme that is taught to every year group from year one, at the beginning of the year. It is IMO a dangerous thing to teach to young children. I myself, was subjected to grooming and sexual abuse from the age of 7 and obviously being taught to keep secrets from other adults was a huge part of that, at least until the shame and fear of it all kicked and kept me quiet. I do not think that teaching primary age children to keep secrets is ever appropriate or in line with good safeguarding practice.
My other child in the school was also given a worrying lesson on equal rights which I will try and explain in a bit if that is helpful?
The lesson on equal rights for my yr 6 child focused heavily on the rights of trans people and barely touched the rights of women or disabled people or the the issue of racism. My son told me that there was a big discussion about the trans person Roberta Cowell, the UK’s first transsexual to have the surgery. My son was very confused after the lesson about whether people can change sex and whether everyone starts out as females (something that the teacher said might be true). The teacher started to explain the surgery that Cowell had but stopped herself and told them that they would learn this in secondary school.
At home, after explaining some of the science to him, as well as confirming that nobody should be treated badly because of something that is different about them, he concluded by himself that the teacher had tried to trick him. The lesson was definitely a jigsaw one.
I know that Jigsaw are not one of the worst but I feel very upset about what my children have been taught.
I'm so sorry.,