Sex education - thought please

[civilfawlty]

My Dd is nearly 9 (year 4). Yesterday she came home and told me they had received the first of three sex education classes. I was surprised as there had been no mention of this in the half-term circular running us through the next elements of the curriculum. However, I am fully supportive of a complete sex education delivered in an age appropriate manner. I would say this should include information about healthy relationships (gay and straight); birth control and so forth.

However, the info was delivered to both boys and girls in the same room at the same time. Whilst I think it is absolutely right that they receive the same info, I am concerned that it is necessarily new and awkward and titillating and so forth. My Dd was principally embarrassed and focussed on that rather than the info. I was thinking that delivering it, at least at first, separately gives them the opportunity to ask questions and deal with these new insights before, perhaps, coming together to discuss what it means to have healthy relationships. Just wondered what anyone else thinks? I'm not sure I'm right - these are just my initial thoughts...

Bump

To be honest, the policy seems to vary from school to school, but I do think that parents should be told what is being covered in each year group and when, so I would recommend that you ask the school.
In infants school the following topics were covered: how they had changed since they were babies, different types of families (the ones present in the class), parts of the body and the differences between boys and girls.
In junior school, the onset of puberty was covered at a very simple level (boys and girls were separated for talks about periods), they also covered how a baby grows in the womb (but not how it got there) and how a baby is born.
In Y7 (where my dd is now) they have covered sexual intercourse and some basic aspects of contraception and are beginning to put this in the context of relationships. HTH

I definitely agree that parents should be told what will be discussed in classes. I'm in favour of mandatory sex education for all children but I do think parents have a right to know what sort of information their child will be given.

I think boys and girls should be given this information together. Obviously they won't experience the same things during puberty, but I think long-term it would help demystify each others' bodies and head off any squeamishness about periods etc. I think removing girls from the class to talk about periods makes the whole subject seem secret, dirty and shameful which is hardly a step forward for feminism! I know grown men who still know sweet naff all about periods, even the biological facts, which is really quite sad.

Yeah. Point taken about it not being shameful. I suppose I was thinking, for the initial full-on info download, that it was quite a lot to take in without the addition of titillation and teasing. But you are right that it shouldn't be about separating because people would find something offensive or any of that twaddle.

Anyway - interesting and complex and fascinating and, in the end, hardly an issue in the grand scheme of things.

Really useful to get a sense of what might be covered. I'm about to deal with 'how' babies get made: so I'm inferring that wasn't...

I think the boys and girls were both given basic information that puberty happens in different ways for boys and girls and the difference is that girls have periods and boys don't! Yes ideally the subject needs to be taught together, but the boys had to be removed because they were not taking the subject seriously!
Primary aged resources for how a baby is made tend to start at the point of conception.
HTH