PHSE and teaching union influence. Questions?

[ifonlyus]

Sorry to name you and quote you here Terrifiedandregretful If you would like me to remove this I will report my post but I did not wish to derail the TUC post.

I recently applied to review NUT approved PSHE material so whuch included the gender unicorn and educating children about sex and gender through studying clown fish (I kid you not). I doubt I’ll be invited on to the committee after what I put on the application form

Is this how it works? The teaching unions get to approve PSHE or are schools free to use what they want but the NUT endorse stuff, effectively giving it an approving stamp so that schools don't feel the need to delve deeply into the materials they are using?

Either way, is there anything us, as parents, can do to influence and challenge what is endorsed by the TUC? How else do schools know what resources to use in PHSE? How is this going to change when compulsory SRE comes in? Will there be a curriculum all schools have to use and who is writing it? It is due to start in September 2019 so presumably the work is happening now.

Given the roughshodding actions of Stonewall, and the parallel universe I feel I am living in where common sense and critical thinking has gone out the window, I'm deeply concerned what is going to be pedalled to schools as compulsory teaching.

Ugh - PSHE not PHSE

Gender unicorn ?!

This reminds me, and sorry to derail but there is a government consultation open on SRE teaching, including sections on gender identity, and I’ve seen TRAs online reminding their TRA followers to complete it. We need to ensure parents have an input, we’ve seen what happens when institutions take advice only from one group.
consult.education.gov.uk/pshe/relationships-education-rse-health-education/

Tbh most decent schools would use resources endorsed by the pshe association, not nut.

No worries ifonlyus. I find the main issue with pshe resources is everyone is so desperate for some ready planned lessons and resources that they don’t delve too deeply into them. Most pshe is taught by non specialist staff who hate teaching it as much as the kids hate being taught it. We have ‘citizenship’ days where staff are with their form all day working through material that landed in their inbox at about 9am (school starts 8.40). Therefore there is a massive market for ‘off the shelf’ lessons. This has very much been a gift for trans organisations to get their message out.

The NUT resources I mentioned were part of their campaign against sexism (oh the irony). The pack is called ‘Agenda’ and I’m not sure if it’s been issued to schools yet as they were asking for reviewers for a consulting group (I was asked because I’ve been active in the campaign). The trans pages were doubly outsourced as all of the lesson plans etc had been provided by other organisations whose names I forget but of the GIRES ilk. So it all comes back to the same few self appointed ‘experts’.

Teachers and schools who don’t wish to engage brain can then just find all these things online and hey presto their day is planned. Teachers are generally the kind of people who want to be nice and kind and are also incredibly busy - most will link this issue to gay rights and therefore listen to the ‘experts’ unquestioningly and most wont think further.

Meanwhile with the NUTbeing in favour of self id I am not sure how I as a teacher would be treated if such a pack appeared in my inbox at 9am on a citizenship day and I refused to teach it. The way things look at the moment the school could probably discipline me for transphobia and my union would probably not support me.

Thanks Terrified and bzzbeebzz for your input.

So as parents, we can ask the school to disclose what they are using to teach PSHE? And could complain (nicely of course!) if they are using resources like the gingerbread thing or gender unicorns or whatever. Much of it does not stand up to scrutiny - especially if the teacher thinks they are helping to break down gender stereotypes. It doesn't take much thinking to realise it does the opposite. I am not blaming teachers for what they deliver. I know plenty of teacher and know how busy they are and how this would have easily got into schools.

And the PSHE Association looks like it holds thousands of resources. It wonder if they use any checking process to scrutinise resources before they endorse them.

I believe the NHS has some seal of approval that is added to health wesbites to give them authority with the public. I'm trying to find out if such a thing exists with information schools use and if we have an opportunity to tackle it from that angle. Then all parents have to do is check their school uses resources with that seal of approval rather than checking everything that comes out.

I’ve put that consultation on the to-do list and I’ve emailed DD’s school asking for their KS1 PSHE material.

The SRE draft guidelines include a section where schools are advised to rigorously 'vet' speakers, their credentials and external materials being used for SRE.
The more parents that challenge schools about their teaching of this the better. Ask the school to confirm that no materials that actively undermine science/ biology are being used, no active promotion of sex changing as a good idea, no advocating the use of off label drugs, safeguarding being complied with and that any statistics about suicide are fully peer reviewed and in line with Samaritan's guidance.

If schools understand that these are controversial issues that could result in a major fall out then they are more likely to review them in this light. Currently they just see this stuff as coming from the 'experts' rather than treating them as potentially biased materials from groups lobbying for social / political change.

Re peer on peer sexual assaults in primary schools and the contribution of SRE:

This BBC article today points to the lack of government action on preventing these kind of assaults

www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-45498984

It links to a select committee report which includes as a preventative measure the need to tackle gender stereotyping. It talks about how parents can contribute.
publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201617/cmselect/cmwomeq/91/9109.htm#_idTextAnchor085

The TRA agenda and the advice it would seem to promote to parents are about reducing safeguarding, eroding children’s boundaries and promoting harmful gender stereotyping via stupid ideas of what ‘masculinity’ is like or what ‘femininity’ is like.

That is not to downplay the massive influence of easily available pornography which is a driver of child abuse and assaults by children and needs to be tackled by SRE as far as possible.