New campaign for compulsory sex and relationships education in schools in England and Wales

[RowanMumsnet]

Hello

Some of you may have seen that long-term Mumsnet friends End Violence Against Women (EVAW) and Everyday Sexism have launched a new campaign to persuade the government and main party leaders to make comprehensive sex and relationships education compulsory in state-financed schools in England and Wales. (At the moment, some basic facts about reproduction, biology and STDs are on the National Curriculum, but almost everything else is left to the discretion of individual schools.)

When we asked MNers about this before, you told us very clearly that you wanted compulsory, comprehensive SRE from primary level upwards; you can see the results of the survey we ran a couple of years ago here.

So we've given our backing to this one. Justine's quote is: 'Mumsnet users are clear: they want comprehensive, compulsory sex and relationships education, and as children get older they want it to address topics like pornography, sexting, sexual violence, and meaningful consent. Both boys and girls can be vulnerable to peer pressure and abuse, and good SRE helps them to recognise the building blocks of healthy, happy relationships. Mumsnet has long called for SRE to be updated to reflect the internet age - and for teachers to be supported in delivering it - and we're delighted to be backing this important campaign.'

If you fancy getting involved, there's a petition you can sign here.

Thanks
MNHQ

I haven't read the whole thread but there is so much confusion in this area and whenever schools try to engage with the parent community the whole later run and hide under beds covering their ears singing lalalalalalalalalalalala.

Now we need to deal with this when they are YOUNG not when they already come to you with crabs n herpes.

My ds said her over 20 year old son came to her with some minor std and she said why wasn't he wearing a condom and he said 'oh mum! the girls fall over themselves to offer unprotected sex because the guys like that better'

SO MANY GIRLS ARE JUST SO DUMB!!!!

But you can't teach sex ed when so many parents are horrified and think the kids will be sexualised by the lesson and when some of the resources for the year 6 sections sound so poor. I may be wrong but a graphic birth from the business end isn't necessarily a good resource for a year 6 boy is it? More emotional stuff would be better.
oh and mixed schooling helps too I bet.

err how do you conclude that the girls are the dumb ones there? it was a boy who'd come home with an std and yet it's girls fault? they're the gatekeepers of sex and contraception?

Honey

No I agree, we shouldn't have to hit the emergency button and proactive education, support and counselling should be a commonplace resource.

However my fear is that this model of provision (especially in the comprehensive form you describe) simply doesn't fit into the way services are commissioned. The ethos that underpins these services- a reactive, short term measurable goal one that is cheaper to establish and run for trusts and authorities means they are stymied from adopting longitudinal formats because they don't show immediacy of savings or results.

I hope things will change. I hope you get to do your study. I hope that should your findings bear witness to a need for it, that you get people to listen to you and agree to fund a service like this.

:)

No Honey, I just think the potential negative consequences of very young promiscuity seem to me to be self-evidently more serious for girls than for boys.
I think it is mad that we don't tell girls to not sleep with anyone at all until they're old enough to take care of themselves! Wise enough!

Boys we need to address around respect for women and to do something about the revolting porn they are watching in their zillions of hours which makes sensible sexual relationships so difficult for them.

who doesn't tell girls that?

equally though we need to tell boys that.

I would say that the consequences of youthful sexualisation affects both and it cannot be separated into 'male' or 'female'. Girls have, for far too long, been made the gatekeepers of responsibility for male sexuality.

From early messages about being the one to set the pace in sexual relationships (in total denial of their own sexual responses) so they learn to shut off their own arousal in order to arrest that of their sexual partners 'before they go to far' to their having their clothing and public behaviour commented upon, girls are all too often the main covert or overt recipients of sex education.

Simply telling girls not to sleep with anybody until they are 'old enough to take care of themselves' both denies their early development of sexual feelings and doesn't acknowledge the developmental psychology of adolescents and pre-adolescents- they won't accept 'being told'.

Wow!

MrsJavier's posts are exactly why we need compulsory sex and relationships education in schools.

"'Mumsnet users are clear: they want comprehensive, compulsory sex and relationships education..."

For one thing, this is ungrammatical. For another, it's a typical generalisation to say that this is what "Mumsnet users" want. I am a Mumsnet user, but I don't want it. My friend, however, does. She's also a Mumsnet user. Why is her view taken by MNHQ to be that of the majority of Mumsnetters?

Grr.

sorry, of course I totally agree, that was just a flip comment because I think the lack of parental engagement with the subject is tragic. And the fact that whatever you say we do have a real problem with teenage pg and STD transmission. As things are I do think girls need to be more careful in terms of the damage that can be done to them and their fertility. Boys who are looking at pornography of gang raped girls are not necessarily going to respond to gentler messages are they? I think we need to protect girls as well as aim for an ideal gender equal message.

and I AGREE in an ideal world all these sophisticated messages should be passed on about sexuality.

I think the sophisticated resources I have seen are good and teach the whole child, regardless of gender, about how they might become adults and honour their own instincts and another person's etc etc.

But some of the resources are out of date and inappropriate.
It needs a lot more discussion and engagement of the parent population. but I don't know how that can be achieved. When I was a primary parent governor we could not raise a single parent's interest in the subject - heartbreaking.
sorry to be flip, I think as things are - girls are the gatekeepers.
until we are sweden we have to suck that up don't we?

I think from a pregnancy standpoint, a workshop on the realities of pregnancy and caring for babies facilitated by previous and current younger parents would be a better idea than the way my school did it - don't have sex or you could get pregnant. Nothing about the difficulties of pregnancy or child-rearing.

The main issue is who and how will prepare the curriculum and can it be trusted? It can have very reverse and undesirable effects as all these anti-drug or anti-bullying campaigns.

Parental engagement aside - and that will require a major cultural shift here in the UK - I'm absolutely gobsmacked at the number of people on here who seem to think it's OK that teachers in the UK are not equipped to deal with delivering SRE.

I'm from Holland - where sex education starts at primary and is compulsory. Delivering this is part of teacher training and so it's no big deal.

In secondary when I was at school, SRE was covered in biology - we spent an entire term on it, not just on the basics of human reproduction but also on homosexuality, relationships, peer pressure and the difference between male and female orgasm. Again, the teacher was trained and it was no big deal.

There's no such subject as PHSE in Holland, by the way. It isn't considered necessary because its aspects are covered under other subjects.

Why can't we make SRE compulsory once we have adjusted teacher training so that everyone is qualified to deliver it?

"The main issue is who and how will prepare the curriculum and can it be trusted? It can have very reverse and undesirable effects as all these anti-drug or anti-bullying campaigns."

This ^ if you are going to engage everyone with this it would have to be delivered unbiased and fairly to all.

Another teacher here agreeing with HONEY. As a Biology teacher I'm quite happy to teach sex Ed and have also delivered Well Woman sessions on smears and breast checks . I really think that we need a national band of travelling teachers who visit all schools, deliver the same programme nationally to all students on every issue from sex to drugs to domestic violence to online bullying. Students need to hear such important issues from a different set of voices, in carefully chosen small groups that allow an atmosphere of intimacy, to ask any question they want. Trying to deliver these sessions to a mixed class of 30 , in an ill-equipped room, using badly photocopied worksheets by teachers who aren't trained in this is doing our youngsters a disservice.

"SO MANY GIRLS ARE JUST SO DUMB!!!!" Just wow! . From the anecdote you were relaying there MrsJavier I'd have to conclude that so many boys are, at the very least, selfish and many are probably abusive.

Agree with a Puffins. That's why we need education about relationships.

Thatsnotmyname

Yes, good point about using specialised teachers. Pupils may need a good working relationship with their regular teachers and many do confide in them BUT for some (often more vulnerable) pupils, the emotional and professional distance afforded by teachers of PHSE they don't have to then face every day afterwards is valuable and encouraging of disclosure.

If you have grown up feeling betrayed by and untrusting of those people closest to you, a regular teacher may fall into that category of 'close but yet to betray' and the child will not want to risk testing that relationship. Funnily enough, they feel safer disclosing to somebody who does not have such a strong existing relationship with them.

thatsnotmyname - agree and that could be supplemented with freeshare resources developed by specialists that allow young people to also do interactive units online in the classroom or at home which would also engage parents who wanted to be engaged with the materials being used.

e.g. CPD at a college i worked at on, say for instance, safeguarding would be one face to face session follwed by yearly online log on, do the reading, do a quiz, sessions that took about an hour.

similar could be employed for students - so they have their half day workshop once every half term then have to do a couple of follow up online sessions. so some talking, sharing, asking q's and some private solo engagement with the materials and a ton of links provided to further information, services etc.

I think one of the problems is that a 'one size fits all' approach to this does not work and is why you need to respect a parents right to decide what is appropriate for their child. I am fully aware that many primary aged children are in unboundaried environments where they have unsupervised access to the internet or worse are in abusive homes where they are exposed to all sorts of horendous stuff. The fact is that what these kids need in terms of education and support is not the same as what my kids need at the same age. I am more than happy for my kids to be taught about how babies are made, what changes to expect as they approach puberty, the fact that their bodies are private and should not be touched inappropriately, how to be a good friend etc but at primary age my kids do not need more than that. Secondary school is a different kettle of fish, with mobile phones and compulsory ipads etc they will be exposed to all sorts of stuff that they need to be prepared for sadly. I would stand by a parents right to withdraw their children from these lessons but still think the lessons should be offered in all schools in whatever way that is practical.Outside agencies sound like a good idea to me. Maybe each county could set up some new posts where specialist teachers could deliver.There is nothing worse than a reluctant or embarrassed teacher trying to get these messages across to a bunch of teenagers!

it is problematic. i'm in the fortunate position as commenting as someone who 'gets' state education but doesn't actually have to entrust her own child to it as I have opted out by home educating. that option is available to others if they don't want the state determining their child's learning. opting in however means accepting the terms of that state provision.

opting out costs you in lost earnings, time and social acceptability. you have to weigh up these things and face the consequences of your decision.

if you don't want the state to decide what your child learns and is exposed to then you must make provision to educate your child yourself outside of that system.

I completely agree with TheHoneyBadger - the last Offsted report into PSHE very clearly said that the best delivery is by specialists. It is unbelievable then that given that 40% of PSHE delivery was rated Not Good, mostly in poorer performing schools, Michael Gove then decided to take PSHE off the national curriculum in May 2013. This means no one is currently responsible for any of these issues & schools don't have to teach it - they can 'choose'. The rumour is that there is not enough money for another separate subject inspection into PSHE and yet how else will we know if the situation is improving or not?
The UK has fallen to the bottom of the WHO's child mortality league for the whole of Western Europe and young people's mental health services have been drastically cut - a perfect storm for young people's health. We simply must make sure this subject is taken even more seriously than any other as if a child or young person is suffering for whatever reason, they cannot learn. It must be statutory.