100 organisations ask Labour to abandon Tory revised guidelines on RSHE

Here is a previous response from End Violence Against Women

https://www.endviolenceagainstwomen.org.uk/government-rshe-proposals-would-harm-children-by-limiting-vital-education/

No, I think they responded but used the day it closed (and the change in government) to send the letter.

If you read the letter it seems sensible.

You might be interested in this, Re 'developmentally appropriate guidelines.' p.359 of this paper 19415257.2021.pdf (cardiff.ac.uk) states:
"Following recommendations which draw upon the design of the Scottish curriculum (Donaldson 2015, p. 93), the Welsh Government recently overhauled its national curriculum and proposed significant reforms to Relationships and Sexuality Education. Following two reports from a purposefully established Sex and Relationships Expert Panel, chaired by EJ (Renold and McGeeney 2017a, 2017b), these recommendations unfolded into a proposal for mandatory RSE for all children in Wales aged 3–16. Key changes include the shift from ‘sex’ to the more expansive definition of ‘sexuality’ and the foregrounding of ‘developmentally appropriate’ (rather than ‘age appropriate’) learning around six thematic areas (‘Rights and equity, Relationships, Sex, gender and sexuality, Bodies and body image, Sexual health and well-being and Violence, safety and support’) and across the curriculum, from humanities and the expressive arts to science and technology. Crucially, ‘developmentally appropriate’ is defined in the most recent guidance, not in relation to age categories, as is more commonly observed in RSE curricula, but as practice that ‘will not assume, but attune to and build upon learners’ evolving knowledge and experience’ (Welsh Government 2020a, p. 40). Further, it states that learning should be underpinned by a collective whole-school approach and eight embedding principles (Rights and gender-equity based, Empowering, Creative, Co-produced, Holistic, Inclusive, Protective, and Preventative)."

Apologies as I've not read every post but have I got this right?

These 100 organisations presumably had the same opportunity as everyone else to respond to the consultation?

Instead (or maybe in addition?) they chose to bypass the consultation process and appeal directly to the government to ignore it and thereby everyone else's responses?

Is this standard practice?

I kind of hope I've got the wrong end of the stick because it sounds so dodgy I think I'd rather be that idiot who posts without reading the thread properly.

If we are derailing @FinalCeleryScheme, your user name makes me smile every time I see it 😊

Isn’t section 28 a bit of a distraction for this conversation?

Yes, it’s completely irrelevant. (And my experience at school when it was in force is that it had no effect whatsoever: we were actually, and correctly, taught about how wrong it was.)

The only current issue is whether any instruction about the acceptability or plausibility of trans ideology should be put in front of children. To which the answer is obviously ’no’. Because it’s a load of bullshit.

Both posts are very good, I agree with you

Crossed with @PepeParapluie.

My experience as a lesbian teacher during Section 28 was that it was unpleasant and that it successfully ispired a range of gay and lesbian protest groups to successfully challenge it. There were 6 gay / lesbian teachers in my secondary school. Some students. Nobody was openly "out" as teachers kept their private lives private but many of us were spotted by young gay students - especially the 2 camp men. And me by amongst others the 6th former who was behind the bar in a gay club I walked into and greeted me with "Hello Miss"!

It was a nasty bit of legislation that's long gone but it's currently being appropriated to try to persuade people that discussing age appropriate SRE for children is somehow regressive, pearl clutching and wrong. So I'm wary of its regular appearance on threads like this.

Isn’t section 28 a bit of a distraction for this conversation?

The Cass report has highlighted the need for a cautious approach to gender questioning children. The schools guidance is in line with that cautious approach, and includes taking a cautious approach to teaching it by not teaching gender identity ideology as fact.

This is to prevent harm to children, because exposing them to a difficult to comprehend idea about changing gender, which could lead to distress for children and perhaps even ultimately irreversible medicalisation is clearly not in their best interests.

When we have a report showing the ultimate risk and lack of benefit of social and medical transition in children, surely it makes sense to use that evidence to formulate safeguarding plans? Equating that to a moral panic or to section 28 seems like an attempt to discredit genuine, evidence based concerns to me.

It may be better for LGB which is good. That doesn’t mean propagating male toxicity or reinforcing gender stereotypes through gender ideology.

Or the falsehoods due to the GRA and gender ideology generally.

Adults who push for the above are not helping children

It's a discussion board. People can discuss things

I agree with the signatories of the letter. I think another consultation probably is a good idea; if it happens parents and orgs will get a chance to feed in then.

Thank you. Most of the gay people I know my age say the same. I didn't know any out gay people when I was at secondary school in the 90s, I think be because it was not as accepting then as it is now.

Well said Retire. I'd also add in the lack of due diligence from the last government and civil servants (all very well documented and evidenced) that resulted in some of the most unsuitable individuals and organisations in the world being given access to schools and shamefully children via SRE.

The DfE issue countless consultations - most? policy changes quite rightly goes out to consultation so I'm not sure how much mileage there is in challenging this one? I think the main issue is that the game is up for trans activism.

Parents have the confidence to speak out. We're refusing to be shamed out of our concerns by the bad faith actors. This isn't going to stop. For every derail (oh no Section 28 - here's a google) parents and responsible adults know that too much SRE has been provided that fails to centre children. That children shouldn't be confronted with porn and unhinged transactivism in schools. And yes - it's not all schools but it's far too many.

Partnership with parents as established in the Children Act way back in 1989, schools to maintain political neutrality (as dictated by law) and safeguarding children to be central for every adult and organisation working with children.
They're legal and reasonable expectations (unless you're a transactivist)

My experience of school under section28 was horrendous, as was the experience of many other people I know.

Give it up Cassie. Many of us know what school was like with S28 and what you're saying does not reflect the reality of school at the time. Yes. Even with your googling. This was not my experience at what was so lovingly called a "bog standard comprehensive".

This is section 28:

Prohibition on promoting homosexuality by teaching or by publishing material.

The following section shall be inserted after section 2 of the Local Government Act 1986 (prohibition of political publicity)—
“2A Prohibition on promoting homosexuality by teaching or by publishing material.

(1) A local authority shall not—

(a) intentionally promote homosexuality or publish material with the intention of promoting homosexuality;

(b) promote the teaching in any maintained school of the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship.

(2) Nothing in subsection (1) above shall be taken to prohibit the doing of anything for the purpose of treating or preventing the spread of disease."

Introduced by the Conservatives in 1988. Repealed by Labour in 2003 after a previous unsuccessful attempt where the Tories in the Lords blocked it.

https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cdp-2023-0213/

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/homeaffairs/page/0,11026,875944,00.html

Section 28 was under the previous administration (Conservatives) and most certainly did affect what was taught at school. If you were at school under Blair, you'll be too young to remember it. I do and I can see the difference between LGB children's experiences today vs. when I was in secondary school (during s. 28)

The "big society" and getting rid of LEAs was most certainly a conservative movement.

https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/big-society-speech

We’ve got to get rid of the centralised bureaucracy that wastes money and undermines morale.

And in its place we’ve got give professionals much more freedom, and open up public services to new providers like charities, social enterprises and private companies so we get more innovation, diversity and responsiveness to public need.

I was at school under Tony Blair's Labour and we had 3rd parties come in to do certain aspects of sex education. The outsourcing of it is not a Tory thing, it was happening before.

The main difference between then and now is how sex has become politicised. Yes Section 28 was in operation, but it didn't ban the teaching of homosexuality, and we learnt about it.

Now sex has been politicised and there are a lot of vested groups coming in to not just teach facts, but teach theories as fact too. Stonewall are one of the signatories.

Everyone remembers "Stranger Danger", it didn't need to go into explicit detail, so discussions around porn can do the same too. Children don't need to be told about the content, and clearly there are some people doing that.

Partnership with and feedback from parents, not organisations or charities, is critical if there is central guidance about what is taught. This is about what they're teaching OUR children - all these organisations are LESS important than parents. Definitely we need to cut out the dodgy outside agencies (I suspect this is why some of these charities are against the draft guidance as it's drying up an income stream), but even if it's the LA doing it, there needs to be partnership with parents. I'm afraid I find the attitude of some LA staff contrary to safeguarding guidance as far as that goes. There is sometimes a 'we know best' attitude when they clearly don't, not about individual children.

I don't know when some people in charities, organisations and local authorities decided parents were the enemy and they knew better, but having this attitude is not in children's best interests and does not follow safeguarding best practice.

Fortunately in my experience most teachers don't think like this - probably because they're on the front line and do actually speak to parents!

And we know the lobbyists got to Ofsted of course.

Parents will know better what's age appropriate for their child than the school staff, they will know their children better. This point from a PP is so important SRE needs to be taught in schools in full partnership with parents

It's not just about what is taught - because that will rightly vary according to schools and different groups of children - but about HOW it is taught. It is already written into safeguarding law and statutory guidance that sharing information is critical to safeguarding. Sharing all RSE resources is part of this. If a child is getting mixed messages or conflicting messages from home and school that is not in the child's best interest.

Instead of following safeguarding law, we've seen schools use outside resources and trying to hide what they're doing from parents - on the gender issue and on RSE. This is NEVER in children's best interests except in situations where social services should already be involved as a matter of urgency and these cases are very few.

I think the way in which adults with dubious agendas have been enabled to try and keep secrets from parents is one of the biggest parts of the scandal because it's ALREADY against safeguarding law and good practice so all schools doing this should be marked down by Ofsted / have interventions. But somehow these very determined adults seem to have got away with it for a decade or more and have convinced other useful idiot adults this is a good idea. Though I think even the useful idiots know it's never in a child's best interests which is why they're so cagey and have to resort to 'pearl clutching' as an argument.