Safeguarding in UK Schools - new Statutory Guidance + existing classroom programme teaching 6yr olds to masturbate

[MoleSmokes]

I am going to link to a part of another current thread ("Writing to Your MP") and try to bring the discussion here in case it gets lost over there or ends up dominating the thread:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3698659-Writing-to-your-MP?msgid=90288651

In the UK, a child cannot legally consent to sexual acts and related activities. It is also an offence under law for an adult to engage in some activities in the presence of a child.

A UK "sexologist" Jonny Hunt is running a programme in Warwickshire school classrooms that includes teaching and encouraging children from age 6 how to masturbate.

Is this against the law?

Sexual Offences Act 2003 section 8 - Causing or inciting a child under 13 to engage in sexual activity.

He appears to have links to the Kinsey Institute. As part of the Kinsey's research into sexuality in the USA, parents were recruited and were required to masturbate their infants at home and record how the babies responded. The records of these "experiments" are in the public domain.

The Daily Mail covered this story recently (link in linked post above).

Related, covered in the same thread, the DfE have just released this:

Keeping children safe in education
Statutory guidance for schools and colleges on safeguarding children and safer recruitment

However, under "Sexual Abuse" there is no mention of age of consent and the impression is given that school children are able to engage in consensual sex, with anyone.

I have flagged @Spero (Sarah Philimore) and she is going to have a look at all this and advise if it is as bad as it looks.

The discussion starts here, in the thread "Writing to Your MP"

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Another current thread, about the views of "sexologist" James Cantor on paedophilia "as a valid neurological sexuality" that could be added to the LGBTQ+ alphabet, is related in that it is relevant to sexualising children and consent.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3699723-dr-james-cantor-anti-transing-children-pro-paedophilia-as-valid-sexuality

Weird how it's been removed when nothing was wrong with it.

Anyone who has read the Warwickshire CC material will have seen that the central message woven throughout all the material is body autonomy and consent - your body is your own, it belongs to you, nobody has the right to do anything to it that makes you feel scared and uncomfortable, and if they try to, these are the ways that you should immediately get help. Not only has the specific passage in question here been taken out of context, it has been wilfully misunderstood. In a nutshell, it says, it’s ok to touch yourself, but it should only be done in private. That’s it. No teacher in their right minds would use the terms ‘masturbation’ or ‘self-stimulation’ in a KS1 classroom, and the guidance does not in any way suggest that they should. Self-stimulation is how the guidance (written by adults) describes the term to teachers (also adults). The end product of this hysteria will be that content created to protect children from harm will be removed from classrooms and that children will suffer because of it.

Interesting that you keep trying to steer the discussion back to the bit about masturbation. Almost as if you'd rather we not talk about the other, far more disturbing material that was also included.

The end product of this hysteria will be that content created to protect children from harm will be removed from classrooms and that children will suffer because of it.

Or notice will be taken that it needs to be reviewed and rewritten to be better.

Hysteria?? No hysteria on this thread but there have been repeated attempts to minimise valid parental concerns.

Why are you not concerned about the content of WCC training as shown in the screen shots?

Althea The Warwickshire 'All About Me' guidance has disappeared from the council website following the newspaper coverage. Why do you think that is?

Interesting that you keep trying to steer the discussion back to the bit about masturbation. Almost as if you'd rather we not talk about the other, far more disturbing material that was also included - which bit? I haven’t commented on the secondary content as I don’t know anything about it.

Althea The Warwickshire 'All About Me' guidance has disappeared from the council website following the newspaper coverage. Why do you think that is? - because of the massive hooha maybe? I do agree actually that this content should be reworded, so that it’s made clearer and can’t be misunderstood.

twitter.com/hubblevicky/status/1176758148721512448?s=21

There's a whole thread about it, same council.

We must talk about and debate this stuff - people insisting that there must be no challenge need give their head a wobble. #nodebate has had a devastating impact on women's rights and the safeguarding of children.
By all means challenge accuracy, sources and interpretation - but stop telling women that we can't talk about it.

@truthisarevolutionaryact I agree with you, we should talk about it, that’s what drives progress. It would just be preferable for people to check out the facts before they form vehement opinions about it.

*It would just be preferable for people to check out the facts before they form vehement opinions about it.

It's a bit tricky now that Warwickshire council have removed all their documents. Do you have any links where we can still see them?

AltheaVestr1t do you actually have any of the original documents for people to view?

You keep telling people to do research but are not providing anything to back up your own claims that no teach will use self stimulating and other terms.

Here’s a link to the Curriculum Overview for All About Me, again it should be emphasised that this is an adult facing document. This explains the teaching objectives for each year group and then repeats them in child-friendly language. You can see clearly that, while the term ‘self-stimulation’ is used once in the overview, it isn’t used in the child-friendly statements. www.curdworthprimary.co.uk/app/download/5812959103/All+about+me+overview.pdf

Here’s a link to the Mirror article which includes a screenshot of the teacher-facing content in question. I can’t link the original content as it is not available. In this, you can see that the word ‘self-stimulation’ is only used in the title, which states ‘For your information should you need it to remind children about the rules of self-stimulation’ (note the use of ‘should you need it’ instead of ‘tell all children about this as a matter of course’). The word is not used in the suggestion of what to say to the children.

www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/sex-education-lessons-uk-schools-20144000

Which action on the part of a teacher do you think represents the highest risk towards the children in their care, gently reminding a child who has a habit of touching their private parts that it’s ok to do that, but only in private, or letting them carry on regardless of where they are and who might be watching?

I was going to comment earlier but needed to clarify what's actually been said.

I've only ever had to discuss this in the context of a child who has autism and is unaware of certain social boundaries and does "self stimulate;" I've only ever heard this term in this fairly rare context (6 children in nearly 20 years) spoken about between professionals when planning around how to deal with the situation. Speech therapists, school nurses and sencos etc. Very specific language would be used as the child needs it broken down explicitly.

I've also talked about all this sort of stuff with DS in a great book we have and it doesn't mention 'touches;' it describes things like personal space, hugs and kisses (hug, hand shake, or hi five suggested) and moves on to private places in the home or out (eg toilets) and private areas of the body. I remember the last part what taught extremely carefully and explicitly to a group of yr 6 children with ASD. Again, no need to discuss nice touching etc. In fact, consent to simply touch / hold hands etc was taught at the time well within other daily circle time games.

Who ever wrote this has got it completely wrong for general use in primary schools.

gently reminding a child who has a habit of touching their private parts that it’s ok to do that, but only in private

Obviously that is more appropriate. The excerpt in the paper, said to be training material, is inappropriate.

I'm re reading that again and no, it's been very badly written.

The children don't need that much detail around touch. Adults - parents, educators - need to be aware not to communicate disgust if children touch private areas. Not the children that adults find it 'dirty.' And encourage the awareness of private / safe spaces and private areas of the body.

www.goingofftherails.co.uk/programme/

All the content is on the authors's website. He clearly talks about pleasurable touch for small children. This is for year 3 children (7-8 year olds)

"for example, there is a fine line between playful and hurtful - it depends if both people find the activity fun or not. We will remind the children to alway consider is my fun, fun for everyone?"

And for year 2: "No one should touch us in a way we don’t like - especially our privates."

This is the same shift that the NSPCC has made. Moving away from 'it's never okay for someone to touch your privates, even if it feels nice' to a more consenting framing in which children are encouraged to divide touch into food or bad depending on how it feels.

It's very dangerous.

AltheaVestr1t - I think there's a misunderstanding. The title of the thread relates to the new safeguarding guidelines published this month which does not mention age of consent.

To repeat, the title and entire premise of this thread is completely inflammatory and has no basis at all in fact. ‘new Statutory Guidance + existing classroom programme teaching 6yr olds to masturbate’. I have read, in great detail, both the new statutory guidance for RSE and the specific content that this story is based on.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachmentdata/file/830121/Keepinggchildrensafeeineducationn_060919.pdf

AltheaVestr1t

Just to clarify, did you read the link in the op or did you just jump to a conclusion about what we were discussing?

This is the same shift that the NSPCC has made. Moving away from 'it's never okay for someone to touch your privates, even if it feels nice' to a more consenting framing in which children are encouraged to divide touch into food or bad depending on how it feels

Yes. And this puts the responsibility squarely upon children to make that differentiation. And puts the responsibility upon them to stop it. Or decide not to. Or reconcile the confusion of nice feelings with adults doing things that are wrong.

It’s the same insidious boundary creep and it’s vile.

We have all, every one of us, jumped into a thread headfirst thinking we know what it's about only to realise we misunderstood.

Not everyone made a patronising first post about getting facts correct, but we've all done it.