Y9 Sex Ed - Is the school supposed to notify before these lessons

[louisea]

Just that really. DTs came home the other day in good spirits. They were supposed to have had "Pen Day". Apparently a bunch of groups come in to school, talk about various subjects and hand out pens.

Anyway, turned out that the police came in to talk about street awareness and someone else did some sex ed with the kids. I thought that parents had the option to pull their kids out of these sessions if they wanted to (not that I want to). My boys were quite amused by the whole thing and we actually had a good conversation at home off the back of what they had heard in school.

No. Schools don't need to inform you when they're covering the curriculum

I presume if you dont want your child to do sex ed then you write in at the beginning of the year.

OK, thanks. Was curious, that's all.

i wouldn;t have thought they would need to inform parents of year 9 secondary? why would a parent of 14 year ols be against it out of interest?

I find the notion of needing to inform the parents of what you talk to a 14yo about really bizarre. Surely 14yos are big people who move around town on their own, go to the library on their own, watch the news, research their own homework, meet up with their mates without parents watching? How would you hope to keep anything from them?

4yos, yes. 14yos, no.

Unless the rules have recently changed parents can opt their children out of any sex education lesson that is not in the national curriculum programmes of study.

What's the deal then? Think your average year 9 will know a lot about sex anyway

I don't think they have to tell you, but good schools generally do. Ours has the aims of the SRE/PSHE curriculum on its website.

Our kids have the details of the sex ed curriculum in their planners, which parents have to sign along with the home-school agreement.

And we get information on topics covered in other curriculm subjects too. It's all about attitude of school to communication with parents. Especially as it's much rarer to ever set foot in the place than it is in primary, and a written approach tends to take over.

Many schools don't say when as 3/4 of the year group would be removed. It is important that kids get this info and having most of the year in the library doing a sex ed project is a pain for the librarian!

DDs school informed us recently. She is Y7 overseas. They covered ordinary reproduction and assisted conception.
Of her class, five were not allowed to go. One boy asked the teacher, in all seriousness if they should be learning 'this sort of thing at our age'?
Interestingly enough, DD has decided she wants to be a doctor after that. Not an IVF one though, she wants to cut people (surgeon) and IVF is too fiddly.

Interesting to hear the different opinions and different approaches of the schools.

Our school doesn't notify of upcoming sex ed sessions or tell us the yearly curriculum.

I was quite happy for the school to do as they did.