Telegraph: Sex education for three-year-olds in Wales branded 'extreme and unbalanced'

But all children need is to be taught how to challenge gender stereotypes.

That's exactly what the code asks educators to do.

I can't read the article, but all of this pearl clutching just proves to me that people are not reading the actual code. There's nothing surprising on there. There's mention of teaching of sexual relationships at 11+, and not before. There's mention of gender issues at 3+ and 11+, but it says that the lessons should challenge stereotypes. Good.
I cannot for the life of me see what the problem is from a GC stand point really. As for SSA link, I'm failing to see anything but speculation and clutching at straws.

As for learners, I worked in Wales for a decade. 'Learners' is how children have been referred to in every curriculum for yonks. It's not that deep.

Aligning normal child development with children being sexual beings is not the same as understanding normal childhood development in order to spot signs of abuse. These two concepts are worlds apart.

To the poster who said you can take children out, this new curriculum does not allow for it and embeds this queer theory influenced across the whole curriculum

If the whole analysis is difficult to read, a summary of it has been published on our news page:

safeschoolsallianceuk.net/2022/10/09/welsh-rse-code-queer-theory/

But all children need is to be taught how to challenge gender stereotypes. So that the boys playing in the kitchen and wearing princess dresses ante not either ridiculed or told they must be girls. You don't need. Curriculum based on queer theory to do that.

Yes, Datun, that's what I'm starting to understand. And it makes me despair, it really does.

In this scenario, how on earth do they explain pregnancy and childbirth? A totally random event, like lightning strikes?

If you're teaching gender theory, you cant. None of those words can have a definition that doesn't undermine it.

From little children right up to the leader of the opposition, no-one knows what any of those words mean, or what sex even is.

Also did search on female and male - zero results.

How the fuck can you have a "Relationships and Sexuality Education Code" that has absolutely no instances of the words: female, male, girl, boy, girls, boys?

Datun, thanks for the SSA aalysis:
safeschoolsallianceuk.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/A_Review_of_the_Relationships_and_Sexuality_Education_Curriculum_in_Wales_-_October_2022.pdf

My own Googling turned up gov.wales/sites/default/files/publications/2022-01/curriculum-for-wales-relationships-sexuality-education-code.pdf

A scan of terms gave "Phrase not found" for girl, boy, girls, boys; but gave five (5) results for LGBTQ+.

Menstrual gave 4 results, but further reading gave no indication as to who exactly is involved. Menstruation - 0 results. Pregnancy - 1 result, no further info.

Leads me to ask - how do people, let alone children, know what "LGBTQ+" means, if they don't understand get to understand basic human and mammalian biology? And human history? Or is that the whole point; and it's not a bug, it's a feature?

It's just PoMo fucking about, then, really. And it just serves very well to shore up our existing patriarchal power structures. Spit.

I don’t think children are that sexual naturally. I distinctly remember in year 6 when we had our first boys and girls body part education at school, that afterwards some kids with older siblings were gossiping and giggling about sex. No one really knew what it was properly or they just didn’t explain it to me, and I remember going home and my parents explained it was the difference between a man and a woman. The dictionary agreed and in my smug and naive geeky child ways I thought well those kids don’t know what they are talking about 🤣

And then a year later in beginning of secondary I found out what sex actually was. And the memory is seared in my mind because it wasn’t often my parents got one over on me as I was very much an annoying know it all! 🤣

Anyway sorry for the tangent. It’s unclear what’s actually being taught so not sure I can comment.

Three and four year olds should learn the proper names for their genitals to cut down on shame and to insure they can explain things if they are hurt or abused. They need to learn babies don’t come from the Argos catalog. They need to learn it takes a man and a woman to make a baby, but families can look very different.
I’m a lesbian who is not comfortable with the origins and practice of Queer Theory. Foucault thought eight year olds could give sexual consent to adults. Don’t get me started (insert rant here).

It's not about being curious, it's saying normal childhood developments re curiosity is sexually motivated including between ages of zero and five.

You don't need to read the article, you can go straight to the safe schools alliance analysis.

safeschoolsallianceuk.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/A_Review_of_the_Relationships_and_Sexuality_Education_Curriculum_in_Wales_-_October_2022.pdf

I haven’t RTFT, but I just want to remind everyone that parents cannot take their children out of RSE lessons in schools in Wales as of this school year.
www.walesonline.co.uk/news/education/mandatory-sex-education-lessons-go-24917018

I agree with mumoffloofs, that is

I agree
children are curious about sex of course they are- can't you all remember being a child? We don't want to go back to the days of 'don't touch yourself there, it's disgusting'.
and being curious about gender differences surely means being curious about gender, which is a good thing. If we aren't curious about gender how on earth will things ever change- we'll just be stuck forever in a world of rigid gender roles unless we are curious about gender.

I would be calling the police on anyone who was talking sex to my 3 year old child

I no longer have the materials so can't check the precise language used in my course. And I didn't mention gender in my comment, it was one word of many in the comment I quoted. I was pointing out that understanding age appropriate sexual development in children is nothing new and not the apparent red flag the previous poster was suggesting. Link to current NSPCC learning content (and their reference list) for info learning.nspcc.org.uk/child-health-development/sexual-behaviour#article-top

With the telegraph, if you open the article and immediately turn off the internet, then you can read it.

I've not read the Telegraph report etc but just to highlight this approach isn't new. I did advanced safeguarding training with the NSPCC about 10 years ago and one of the modules broke down by age the sorts of normal sexual development in children. There is a normal baseline (i.e curiosity about different body parts in preschool age) and it's essential practitioners understand that in order to spot unusually sexualised behaviours that might be indicative of abuse.

Yes. We're in this ridiculous place where any bloody fool can see that something is dodgy, but because it is often couched in general language, or terms that aren't specific, it gets rubber-stamped with 'plausible deniability'.

I'm not a child psychologist, but people who are have read it and are saying that the lessons are trying to equate normal child development with sexually motivated development.

Also SSA have gone through the entire thing with a fine tooth comb, and have concluded that the lessons are being taught through the lens of queer theory.

After you have read the summary, you can click on the hyperlinks to see exactly how they arrived at their conclusions.

Thanks, Datun - I just found it hard to follow because they didn't cite any examples from the curriculum itself.

I also don't think it's necessarily contentious to say that children are sexual beings from birth. Even Freud thought that. That is obviously very different from saying that children can consent to sexual relationships, but is it totally outlandish to say that children have sexual feelings from a very early age?

"Perhaps, once you get into that mindset, it creates bad outcomes. Local governments have been switching between "service user" and "resident" when it suits (latter usually where you're availing yourself of a service like housing which you've every right to, but the shitty nomenclature they use makes it sound like you're a lazy feckless chancer)."

I am going to file this one, ResisterRex. I suspect it may come in useful at some point. 😉

Yet expressing sexuality through sexual behaviours and relationships with others is a natural, healthy part of growing up. For example, for children aged between 0-5, behaviours such as holding or playing with own genitals, curiosity about other children's genitals, interest in body parts and what they do and curiosity about sex and gender differences reflect ‘safe and healthy development’ (see Brook 2015).’

There's nothing to worry about here.

Got it.