14yo odd quiz at school- do I complain

[Cornecopia]

My ds came home yesterday and said that he had to fill in an online form ( not just him the whole of his year) and the questions were- what is your sexual orientation, are you comfortable in your gender, have you had sexual experiences, have you ever sent or received inappropriate pictures.
I understand some questions are safeguarding views. But bloody hell the sexual orientation etc why on earth is that relevant to my sons schooling?? I just feel his privacy has been really invaded and he doesn’t know himself whether he’s is straight/gay or whatever- I did ask him if there was. ‘Prefer not to say’ option and he said yes but the teacher said not to use that!
I just don’t really know what to think about it all

Sadly, many many many 14 year olds are having sex. You may not like it but it’s true. And it’s a rare 14 year old who doesn’t know who they ‘fancy’ or have crushes on

I'm with you OP, all this collecting data for the common good and we should all be happy to help stuff/be good citizens only applies when they want it to. Meanwhile schools agree, behind parents backs, to use a different name and pronouns for your child and go along with pretending and affirming they are now a boy/girl different to birth sex and don't tell you. Safeguarding evidently.

Given governments are so ineffective with using data, cover things up, don't support parents who ask for help, I minimise giving any out.

Was this an anonymous survey? As long as it didn’t contain personal data, I assume it was one of those population surveys that have been always been used in schools to gather information.
Leading to headlines reporting like, for example, ‘60% of 14 year olds report they have been bullied in school’etc

That website seems to suggest the survey was designed by Leeds council, not the NHS. That the data collected in this particular survey is for each individual school, not the NHS. Is that your understanding. I’m not clear how it supports funding though. Perhaps for Leeds council?

Though the survey itself is not publically available due to copyright (which I find odd). I thought this bit ‘what can I do with the data’ was interesting particularly being encouraged to involve students in data analysis:

What can I do with the data from the My Health My School Survey: You can analyse the survey data for each year that you have completed, or you can analyse a year/year group that you are particularly interested in and highlight pertinent issues or concerns, as well as areas you believe your school is doing well in. This can then be compared to your local authority average, and from 2018/19, to national data to assess where your school fits within these.
If you choose an area or several areas to action plan to improve, you can use our action plan resource to help you. We would also encourage you to involve pupils/students as much as possible in the analysis and also in student leadership.

They also say this:

• We will publish the anonymised results on Leeds Data Mill & Data Mill North as open data.
• The data will be shared with Leeds City Council, Public Health, the School Nursing Service and third parties including research and evaluation partners (currently but not confined to University of Leeds and Leeds Beckett University).

The whole thing was highly sensitive personal data.

How dodgy - why would she see parents as the enemy? It's none of her business either what parents say to their children about data protection nor whether the children choose to participate or not. Given the way data is stolen left right and centre and the multiple data breaches that happen daily any parent teaching their child this is entirely within their rights and responsibilities as a parent.

She's a very dim/ poor teacher if she's just blindly telling children to give up their data whenever asked.

For one thing, he's being invited to admit to a criminal offence (indecent images) and being told by the teacher he mustn't refuse to answer. And given the subject matter, the school cannot promise anonymity either.

Seems like a good opportunity OP to suggest the school discuss ethics and abuse of power. No teacher should be directing children away from a 'prefer not to say' option and the entire thing should be optional. Children should not be asked about their sexuality without a clear opt out and their and their parents' consent.

Think I'd ask to see it. Was permission to do the survey requested? Why did the teacher comment at all? If the staff can see it, it's not anonymous.
I'm long past this as is my DD but I wouldn't want this in schools at all, personally.

That doesn't make it ok for teachers to initiate discussion with their students about sex outside of the PHSE curriculum. Doing so is a red flag. As is this survey from the sound of it.

Good point about them asking about committing a criminal offense.

Given we know that mh support for the young is scarier than hens teeth I'm not sure this is a good use of resources. Why not put the money straight into CAMHS?

Also a very excellent question. Dodgy beyond belief. Who does this survey benefit? Not the children whose data is being harvested.

That is shocking if they are making school level data available to the school that completed it. It can very quickly become identifiable when you start with maybe only 100 responses and the respondents all know each other. Incredibly unethical.

Surely also a breach of GDPR? Excellent point.

The bit that I would have an issue with is that the teacher said not to use the "Prefer not to say" option.

I'd be asking the teacher if they were faced with a form like this at aged 14 or any age, and they weren't sure of their sexuality or orientation or gender or any of the questions being asked in the form (even if it is anonymous), wouldn't they like to be able to use the 'Prefer Not To Say" option? Being instructed not to use it is going to skew the results.

If you know who the organisers are behind the survey, I'd be contacting them directly to advise them that the results from X school are going to be skewed as you have been made aware that at least one teacher advised pupils to not use the "Prefer not to say" option.

It's there for a reason.

"Anonymity" is a can of worms. You can't have both anonymity and support for vulnerable individuals. Or, if you are only trying for anonymous aggregated data then you need complex safeguards in place to avoid de-anonymisation. Especially if you're going right down to a school level or - blimey! - a year group in a school.

You can analyse the survey data for each year that you have completed, or you can analyse a year/year group that you are particularly interested in and highlight pertinent issues or concerns,

You'd better not.

We would also encourage you to involve pupils/students as much as possible in the analysis

Really, you'd better not.

And no-one should be telling children to avoid ticking one of the boxes.

We’ve had two different surveys now mentioned as well as reference to a ‘national survey’ that seems to be commonplace by teachers (?) on this thread.

Interesting that there are multiple surveys collecting personal and sensitive data about children. Yet just where is this magical support that will materialise once the data is collected? A friend has been waiting over a year for MH support for their DC. Another was directed to a couple of self help websites by their GP.

As an aside, surely everyone knows by now that nothing we do online is anonymous in the true sense. I would sincerely hope that every parent informs their child about this. It won’t stop them, but at least they’d know.

Telling them not to use "prefer not to say " basically skews the data. That's often going to be "yes but I'm embarrassed to say", and if it's removed as an option it will result in incorrect "no" answers rather than those votes just not being included.

One common thread is that these are revenue generating exercises for the authors with them anticipating more profits from using (or abusing) personal data in the future.

Schools really need to start using more critical thinking about all this. Until they do, then parents are having to step up and challenge / refuse to allow their child to participate.

What planning are they doing off the back of knowing how many kids are having sexual experiences and what those are? Deciding to bring back HS2 after all?

Basic research ethics - subjects must give informed consent
This includes knowing who is carrying out the research, its purpose, and how data will be handled and used.

For children, parental consent is needed. And opt in, not opt out - so if a parent misses an email the child shouldn't take part.

I’m going to quote the original post as it’s the only post from the person who knows anything concrete on the thread! Everything else is supposition and assumptions.

OP can I suggest you email the teacher and just ask what the form was about as your DS was confused. If it’s a national thing and you are not happy with a young person being quizzed about their sexuality (to be fair I don’t think I’d be happy about that either) then ask if there was an opportunity to opt out in the future.

I wouldn’t go in guns blazing. The important thing is finding out where this form has come from, what the purpose of it is and whether there’s going to be more of it in the future.

I agree. Scientific research, consent and ethics is my line of work.

I would expect to be informed of this beforehand so that I could check these issues had been addressed, and I would use it to demonstrate to my son the importance of checking - just because the school says so, or a form looks official doesn't mean they have to do something like this. Not when it involves highly personal data.

Yes because everything that comes out of the mouth of a teenager is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth 🙄

To be honest I question that in some instances school safeguarding has overrached and teachers acted outside their professional boundaries - especially where it comes to a child's sexuality or gender identity- teachers are not trained psychologists/psychiatrists