Wales primary the sex education experiment

[justasking111]

Now Wales has been ahead with some things, kudos to that. But sex education in primaries, masturbation at nine, advice from the WHO . Parents not allowed to know the content of lessons. It's out of hand now IMO. Are the staff of primaries happy with this.

www.walesonline.co.uk/news/education/wales-sex-education-plans-court-23776923

gov.wales/curriculum-wales-relationships-and-sexuality-education-rse-code

I feel we're being bamboozled into this

YABU dinosaur thinking

YANBU primary is too early

You again? I recall you got rightfully flamed last time.

The evidence is that comprehensive early sex education reduces teenage pregnancies, improves outcomes for teenagers and lowers the abortion rate. What more do you want?

It is not unusual for girls to start their period aged 9 these days.

I've just read the .gov document, all three strands, and there is nothing in the age 3+ and the age 7+ that isn't common sense.

This curriculum is very like what happens in the Netherlands, which has some of the best sexual health outcomes for teens in the world.

My kids were in Dutch schools, if you think at age 3 or 7 they are taught about body parts and reproduction at school you are misinformed.

Sex, reproduction, etc are taught in year 2 of secondary school. At 13-14 years. I believe condoms and bananas are involved...

Did YOU actually read the curriculum document?

Or did you engage your moral panic reflex and post without actually looking at it?

I suspect that Dutch children are being taught about their body parts in primary school. Because it would be really weird not to.

waiting til 13 to teach about puberty would be ridiculous.

We had sex education in primary school back in the early 90's whats the issue with it. We learnt about naming body parts, reproduction in enough detail to understand the implications of periods etc and about periods.

Unless you can say precisely what it is that concerns you in this curriculum I cannot see the issue?

The number of teenage pregnancies in the UK has dropped over time which means in general its fair to say that a clear educational strategy on sex education is working.

There’s really no need to teach masturbation, they’ll work it out themselves.

good job the code doesn’t tell schools to teach masterbation (as a practice) then

I can't find anything in the guidance that actually suggests that's part of the curriculum unless I've missed it somewhere

Why don't we try to learn lessons from countries with much lower teenage pregnancy rates? Is that really such a radical idea?

Why do we just assume we know best? Have you not seen the dismal statistics on teenage pregnancy in the UK compared to, say, other European nations?

Things have improved in recent years but the UK is still at the top of the charts, so surely it's arrogance to reject approaches that have worked elsewhere?

These threads are getting tedious. The one constant is some uninformed OP who thinks that some one-sided, hyperbolic newspaper article represents a full and honest picture.

When I first masturbated I felt immense shame and guilt. I carried it with me for months and told no-one. I thought there was something wrong with me. I imagined the ghost of my dead grandmother watching me, disgusted.

So maybe a bit of education would help?

I would also like to say @justasking111 that I fully support the Welsh governments method of not allowing pupils to be excluded from sex education.

Looking at the curriculum it shows over the years they are taught what consent is, how to flag it up if someone touches them without consent, what the signs of an abusive relationship are.

Unfortunately there are parents who would exclude their children from sex education specifically because they don't want to learn things like that. Those children absolutely need to be in those lessons.

OP started a similar thread a few weeks ago. At least this time the actual policy document is included, so we can easily point out how wrong OP is assuage OP's concerns.

In what decade?

All the info on Google seems to disagree with you

Have you read the document? There is absolutely nothing to object to in there. It is all essential education imo.

The op also doesn't live in Wales 🙄

@justasking111 education in Wales is more or less devolved. You don't live in Wales, therefore why do you even have such a strong opinion on something that doesn't even affect you.

Are you Welsh? Is there a reason why you feel like you are in a strong position to be dictating what should or shouldn't be taught in Wales? If you are English have you considered the cultural and historical ramifications of doing so?

Parent in Wales and I do not object to any of this. We must teach children about respect, sex, puberty, and rights in age appropriate ways in schools. If we are open with our children and do not treat these subjects as if they are dirty secrets then our children will be informed, safe and without stigma.

I thought our teen pregnancy had reduced loads

re the OP, I don't understand why parents wouldn't be told what's on the curriculum.

But they are being told. That document makes the content of the curriculum abundantly clear.

parents just don’t get to see the individual lesson plans or veto them

I mean the OP has literally linked to a copy of the curriculum so I am unsure as to why she is claiming parents can't be told what on it as she has already found it freely available so I think that ones just been pulled out of thin air to be honest

Oh okay

confusing! But I did think we had already improved sex ed and that teen pregnancy was lower than when I was a teen.

We do, the likelihood is that the curriculum is updated every year or so (the one the op linked to is from 2021) and the OP has suddenly got her bee in her bonnet about it as if its some whole new thing that has never happened before

Honestly it doesn't look that much different to what I learnt in Wales in the 1990s except with some extra emphasis on learning that not all family set ups are the same and some focus on recognising the signs of domestic violence and what to do about it which I think its a great addition (it may have been in there previously and our school didn't just teach that bit well)

I think on the face of it it's quite radical and scary compared to what most people experienced at school. However the actual policy seems sound and all subjects are taught in an age appropriate way.

My school is doing a session for parents to learn about the new RSE curriculum (and also aln reform) and as a school governor we've had several discussions and a sub committee dedicated to the topic so it doesn't feel like something that is being hidden in anyway.

I cannot actually believe this is happening and that the votes on this post are sort of 50/50. I hear you OP, they declare that the specific class material and content is sort of left up to the "teacher", you would need to sit in on the class to know what was going on - specifically.

However, you can easily learn what is going on bigger picture and why and how through getting into academic material/papers/journals/books. The sex education is just a slice of the rotten pie.

I strongly recommend New Discourses - start with the oldest videos and watch them all and get a really good grounding on what is actually going on.

School is just not safe or sensible or to be trusted it's not even debatable at this point.
😥

New Discourses is owned by an American Christian Nationalist. The Christian nationalists in America want to change the American state to be more Christian.

Because fundamental Christians (or any major religious groups) teaching sex education always has such an excellent success rate.