My 5yo's teacher is insufferably woke

[Ladyday1995]

Apologies if this is not in the right category.

My DS started year 1 in September. His new teacher has been somewhat of a thorn in my side for a few weeks. Nothing serious though and I've never had much need to speak much to her.
DS came home last week waxing lyrically about COP26, how we are wrecking the planet and destroying animals habitats. He quite rightly doesn't understand what he can do about it, we live a fairly "green" lifestyle etc. We talked about it at length so I could make sure he understood.
Anyway, I'm not all too happy that this is what he's being taught in his valuable schooling hours. I've had a little peep on teachers Twitter and she jumps on many trendy societal issues of today, even supporting insulate Britain FFS.
I realise this is a slippery slope. I'm in Wales and I know the gov has recently slipped past a controversial new "diversity and equality" plan for the curriculum. I can't say I agree with much of what I've read being taught to children, particularly regarding sex education, and gender identity.
It's a bit of a minefield. The climate change lessons aren't ideal, but I digress. My worry starts when the PSE lessons start. Ideally I'd not have my son attend these lessons at all. I am more than capable of explaining these matters to him myself when I think he is mature enough to understand. Is it unreasonable to ask for a more detailed report of what they will be studying? I don't want to look like some Pearl clutching bigot. I am concerned about how much of his teacher's political stances could seep into her teaching practice. Does anyone else have any experience or ideas of what little uns are being taught in school these days?

School will be more than happy to share any resources they use for this. May be a video or discussion or both.

At that age it’s usually the correct names for parts rather than any in-depth sex Ed

The new statutory PSHE curriculum should be available online if you Google. It’s generally names for anatomy in Yr 1, and stuff on not bullying etc. - then the following year health and looking after your body, hygiene, diet etc. Gender identity isn’t in the statutory guidelines for primary school AFAIK.

They should give you details of the curriculum if you ask.

On the climate thing, I don’t really think that’s “woke” in the same way; it’s scientific fact. Regardless; it’s a big topic in schools atm, and is in multiple lessons/subjects - you aren’t going to really avoid it. They will be doing it multiple times each year throughout primary.

We treated it rather like we treat religions: "Well DS, that's what some people believe", and repeat and repeat and repeat.

How on earth is teaching about climate change "woke"??? And yeah, relying on all parents to give great sex and relationship education to their kids has worked brilliantly up to now.....

I mean I remember learning about climate change and global warming when I was that age and I'm not that young:

As others have said don't over estimate the detail of the PSHE. I'm in Scotland and mr kids are 14&11 and I haven't been horrified by anything they've been taught. (Dd 11 has though and now longer wants babies 😂)

What is “woke” about climate change?

I’m in wales too, my ds is year 4 and also being taught about climate change, and WW2. She came home today telling me how important it is to stop the tap running while your brushing your teeth, when your not using it, when you fill your drink up- basically everything that we already do but it’s so much more important now her teacher has told her it

DD not ds sorry!

@mswales

How on earth is teaching about climate change "woke"??? And yeah, relying on all parents to give great sex and relationship education to their kids has worked brilliantly up to now.....

Because what can a five year old do to challenge climate change? Precious little more than we as a working class family can do. My son doesn't need to have the fear of god struck into him that all animals on earth are having the life squeezed out of them by selfish humans. It's been two years of abject psychological hell for children and he's barely even had a year and a half's worth of proper schooling due to lockdowns. I would rather he was learning valuable skills such as STEM, language, artistic expression. It doesn't need to be taught to such young children and it doesn't need to be rinse and repeated several times each term as other users have said happens.

Accusing people of being "woke" is this eras "political correctness gone mad!"

I left this out of the original post as I got curtailed by the climate change thing. Teacher expresses many opinions in favour of things such as gender identity and race theory.

Yikes! You're only 2 months into 13 years of the national curriculum. Maybe state schooling isn't for you

When I said it’s repeated, I mean things like they learn about recycling, they learn about climate change and habitat when there’s a topic on polar animals, they go for a trip around the town and learn about waste services as well as plumbing and libraries and so on; they have an eco-challenge; they do ecological life cycles and so on in STEM; they have cycle to school week; all sorts of things. I don’t see anything bad about that.

A Reception child can know about not wasting water or resources and about why we recycle and why people are trying to use less plastic? Or can learn to cycle or sort your recycling or as a pp said turn off taps or lights? What’s wrong with that?

We also used to explain to DD that one of the reasons we didn’t buy plastic stuff on TV ads was not just because of the expense but also the ecological impact.

@CovidPassQuestion

We treated it rather like we treat religions: "Well DS, that's what some people believe", and repeat and repeat and repeat.

You told him the damage to the environment is "what some people believe" ??

@Ladyday1995

I left this out of the original post as I got curtailed by the climate change thing. Teacher expresses many opinions in favour of things such as gender identity and race theory.

To the kids??

In Year 1 for example one of my DD’s term topics was polar regions - they learned about geography, ice caps, animal habitats, the differences between the north and south poles, things like food chains and which animals were apex predators, tides and currents, animal life cycles, they read bits from accounts of polar explorations. And as part of that they were also learning about climate change, it’s effects on currents and land masses, weather and animal food chains.

It is proper learning, not some kind of soapbox topic that they do!

You stalked her on twitter, don’t like her personal opinions and are complaining that she’s talking to kids about protecting the environment?

OP check out public child protection Wales dot org. your right to worry. It's not good.

Sorry OP but your inability to understand how to get a school age child caring about the world she lives in, is exactly why young children should be taught that at school! My DD spent an entire term at school learning about weather and the world and climates and climate change. There are plenty of ways to make this very serious topic fun and engaging for children.

@noblegiraffe

You stalked her on twitter, don’t like her personal opinions and are complaining that she’s talking to kids about protecting the environment?

Not at all. I could not care less about her personal opinions. And as mentioned in my original post, the climate change lessons are not my main concern. It is part of a wider picture.

I would rather he was learning valuable skills such as STEM, language, artistic expression.

All these skills are covered by age appropriate learning about climate change.

Teacher expresses many opinions in favour of things such as gender identity and race theory.

This wasn't on twitter?

Teaching about climate change is hardly woke.

And yes whilst a young child might not be abke to do an awful lot, it embed basic concepts about wasting water, paper resources and also gives the foundations for learning and developing knowledge as they grow older.

You are a ke to ask about the material taught in phse, what are you worried about?

It seems like you are tying to protect your child from opinions that dont align with yours and somewhat sheild them from information. This is all things that need to be taught at an age appropriate level. Including issues around race and gender. Although you don't say if they were taught this or just the personal opinions of the teacher.

Sorry so many typos, it's late I'm tired.

@RainAndBows3

I’m in wales too, my ds is year 4 and also being taught about climate change, and WW2. She came home today telling me how important it is to stop the tap running while your brushing your teeth, when your not using it, when you fill your drink up- basically everything that we already do but it’s so much more important now her teacher has told her it

Hey, good for Rain jnr. Its amazing what and who makes an impression at that age.

I remember learning about germs at school and I was reluctant to touch anything. Drove mum mad. I'm looking round my house now and I seem to have forgotten that lesson.