T.M.I. =Sex Education for under year 5 and 6 in Primary Schools

[Poeteats4gals]

Hi fellow passionate Mums!!!

Sex Education is not mandatory ...yet. Perhaps September. Parents have many legal rights in this area. They have a legal right to ask for The Sex Education Policy for the school and to scrutinise it and to ask to see DVD's and they have the right to withdraw their children to go swimming as I did today.

If your child is disturbed in any way by the Sex Ed. materials used in the school you can take your child for counselling and have same recorded by your G.P. and seek legal advice. Groups of parents can go to a solicitor especially if you were not informed. The law after all is there ,supposedly , to protect the innocent...our children whom we entrust to be educated.

Schools telling little kids about Sex Ed.is a bit like schools telling them about the tooth fairy or Santa without telling parents. It deskills us as parents and gives kids too much information , too young...what do you think?

The kids chat about things they don't need to know, simply because they are being taught. It's the Garden Of Eden ....all over again ...knowledge!

How about reading , writing , Maths and leaving Sex Ed to us?

WE so know the stage our kids are at!
Anyway ..has Sex Ed. worked to bring down STD's or teenage pregnancy rates?

Let's have some teaching on self esteem
and gift and talent awareness instead that g further in schools that an e mail and a course at a weekend when its down family time.

We know our kids best in this oversexualised culture and this is best to come from parents as and when it comes up..What do you think?

[CrapolaDeVille]

I think Rhubarb has a slightly dirty view of masturbation and kids touching themselves as sexual.....when the reality is they don't identify themselves sexually at the seven.

[shakira123]

Bit belated on this thread but for what it's worth i'm with rhubarb on this.

[pointythings]

I had sex ed in Holland, where I grew up (this is, clearly by pure co-incidence, a country with one of the world's lowest teenage pregnancy rates and highest ages for first intercourse).

We spent an entire term on it, in biology, but we didn't just cover the mechanics of procreation and contraception - we discussed peer pressure, the differences between male and female orgasm, STDs, homosexuality, porn and porn addiction and yes, we very much discussed the importance of self-esteem, commitment and relationship in the context of something that involved giving a part of yourself. The M-word was not mentioned, but the message got across.

We were 12, but it was assumed that we all knew the correct biological terms and that our parents had told us about puberty.

These days in Holland things are even better, because no-one assumes parents tell their children things - it's a multicultural society and there are very religious minority groups in the Netherlands, so these days sex ed does start at age 5/6 - very gently with naming of body parts, the importance of keeping some things private and the basics of appropriate and inappropriate touching and what to do. Information works.

I agree that parents should be speaking of these things openly in their homes, but the fact is that many don't. And with some girls starting periods as early as 9/10 years old, schools have no choice but to step in. Sex ed shoudl definitely be compulsory, and the way it is delivered needs to be streamlined and benchmarked so that bad practice as is happening in Rhubarb's school isn't accepted.

[Loshad]

I teach sex ed in year 7 - as part of the science curriculum. The parents thankfully are not given the option to withdraw their children (it is part of the national curriculum which we are obliged to deliver), which is a good job as the number of kids i teach who are woefully ignorant of periods, or pubic hair, or the sex act itself is shocking.
I love teaching it, am very careful as to how the content is covered and think it absolutely essential schools teach sex ed as so many parents either fail to do so, and do so inadequately.
No fun for 11 year olds who may even have started their periods to have no idea why, or what is happening to their bodies.

[shakira123]

I think sometimes when people are discussing sex ed a lot of issues get muddled. Pointythings you make some good points about holland and the fact self esteem and relationships are discussed, from what I have researched about holland the attitude to sex is very open BUT also the whole culture of the country is very different than here. The family relationships with the sex ed probably go hand in hand, and whilst we can copy the sex ed part we cannot change the whole culture of Britain.

Loshad - I though parents could withdraw their children from SRE at any age but not the science curriculum?

I would agree that no girl should have their period without knowing what is happening to her, but that is not the point that people are making about sex ed, it's not about the puberty lessons, its about the sex lessons at age 7, 8, 9 etc and accompanying videos. It's about parents not being told by schools what their child is learning, it's about schools not having respect for parents. It's about the letters sent home saying "your child will be learning about puberty" and thyen finding out they have actually watched videos showing sexual intercourse.

The whole system needs a complete overhaul and parents need to have more of a voice, at primary level at least.

[psiloveyou]

I've only read the first 3 pages of this thread.
My ds is year 6 and recently had the sex ed lessons. All parents were offered the chance to view the dvds beforehand and discuss the lesson with the teacher. Two of us turned up. The other mum didn't want to watch the dvd so I took it home to watch.
I thought the explanations about sex, periods, masturbation, wet dreams ect were good and age appropriate.
However I was shocked at how little the dvd focused on self esteem and the right to say no. It talked about how an sex brings an orgasm which is a lovely feeling for both partners. It didn't mention how sex too young with the wrong partner will probably be crap and demoralising.
My dh and I sat and watched it with our ds at home. We added our own thoughts and safety tips. Once ds got over his initial embarrassment he asked lots of questions which I know he wouldn't have done at school.
Sex ed does need to be taught but I would recommend parents getting involved as well.

[cory]

I grew up in Sweden- very similar experience to pointythings-and also very low rates of teen pregnancy. Absolutely no recollection of the school ever informing the parents as to what they were going to teach or parents having a voice or anything like that. From what I remember, parents seemed to trust teachers.

[pointythings]

Shakira good points about British culture, but I do despair - can't people see how unhelpful it is not to be open with their children?

I do worry about schools and what they show, and for that reason I would like to see a compulsory sex education programme, with schools having only a limited range of approved DVDs etc. available. In fact I'd like schools to stop relying on DVDs and having much more teacher input/discussion instead, I think children would get more out of it. There is a lot of good stuff out there - the period leaflet for DD being a case in point - but also a lot of rubbish, and I'd like to see some sort of quality control over what is shown.

psiloveyou couldn't agree with you more - I think the self esteem/valuing relationships/treating sex as something important is so missing from the teaching here. I'm completely against Nadine Dorries style abstinence education (especially for just girls) but a piece of research about a year ago looked at attitudes towards sex across Europe, and it was scary - one of the questions asked was 'why would you have sex with your gf/bf? In Holland, over 80% answered 'because they loved that person and wanted to have a long term relationship with them'. In the UK only about 20% did, and a lot said 'because we were drunk'. That is awful.

Unfortunately without tackling the poverty/alcohol/lack of ambition/social and financial inequality trap, we won't break this vicious circle that keeps young people having sex too much, too young and too drunk. At the moment sex ed is basically harm reduction, and there are some indications that it is working a little - but it isn't good enough.

Sorry about the novel, this is a subject close to my heart. Going to bed now.