Tanya Carter from SSA live on Radio4 at noon today #RSEdebate

[2fallsfromSSA]

Tune in the BBC Radio 4's Anti Social programme at noon today to hear our spokeswoman Tanya Carter discuss the #RSEDebate with Sophie Whitehead from the School of Sexuality Education.

She will be discussing topics such as how to protect girls in schools from sexual harassment and whether modelling genitals out of play doh helps. She will be talking about the importance of putting #safeguarding at the heart of all school policies and how this is particularly important for RSE. She will hopefully be discussing some of the examples that have been shared with us by parents and teachers and explaining why they contravene safeguarding frameworks, government guidance, and the law.

This is what we have previously written about SoSE:
safeschoolsallianceuk.net/2023/02/05/the-school-of-sexuality-education/

We hope to also be able to discuss this book as whilst the topic of tomorrow’s debate is explicit sex education and not gender identity ideology in schools, there is very much crossover between the two subjects.

safeschoolsallianceuk.net/2023/03/05/inclusive-teenage-guide-to-sex-and-relationships-a-review/

Perhaps Tanya could have asked directly why School of sexuality are teaching nonsense, rather than just alluding to things. No disrespect meant.

What's the dice game?

I think a lot was left out to make them seem more mainstream than they are.

Yes the "political language" was referenced but not explained.

The Dice Game:

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8680831/Schools-urged-teach-children-young-13-intimate-sex-acts-using-dice-game.html

Adam Fleming was running to programme within very tight parameters happydappy2 and would have shut that down even harder than he did when Tanya tried to raise other "outside parameters" aspects.

This did make me laugh!

Weren’t the School of Sexuality Education also linked somehow to the infamous Family Sex Show?

So Tanya couldn't speak freely? That is appalling-I liked how she said safeguarding children is everyones responsibility-it's so true.

Sophie came across well on a superficial level, well spoken, no hesitation, answer for everything but she didn’t really answer the questions, just kept repeating the fact that “they take safeguarding and safe recruitment seriously”. I think Tanya’s point that it is far better for RSE to be undertaken by familiar teachers who know the pupils is really important, it shouldn’t just be someone who turns up, delivers and leaves again, as Sophie said, they are in a different school every day. I also disagree with the argument that parents can’t have copies of the material because of copyright, agreeing to meet one person and show them the slides is in no way a replacement for copies being made available to all. It really can’t be that hard to deliver them in some sort of format that can’t easily be copied (time limited access, watermarking, I’m no expert).

Yes they were. Here are our pieces on them:

safeschoolsallianceuk.net/2023/03/05/inclusive-teenage-guide-to-sex-and-relationships-a-review/

safeschoolsallianceuk.net/2023/02/05/the-school-of-sexuality-education/

Good for parents to know that Sophie has no problem with porn and children seeing it.
And a complete lack of understanding about that lack of power a child who is shy/embarrassed/not developmentally ready to hear the content being shared. It’s not that simple for a child in a classroom to say I don’t want to listen to this.

Tanya you did really well. Thank you.

Thanks to the BBC and SSA, this has now been exposed.

Bloody hell at the dice game. She said specific sex acts seen in porn weren't being discussed but more "were all bodies represented in porn" type questions. (Even that I have an issue with - its completely presuming all 14 yr olds are regularly watching porn in order to have an opinion on this. And normalising it which is dangerous. )

And that family sex show!!! I didn't realise it was the same people. They should be banned from working with children.

They sidestepped the safeguarding issue by saying they had great training and were....

I really don't think the radio was clear on how far from mainstream these people are.

Yes flowers agree completely. My daughter is that age and I don't want porn (bearing in mind as pointed out so much of this is not consensual and peddles an abusive narrative) being normalised.

Thankyou so much to Tanya and your organisation for making a stand about this.

Yes, in a BBC context, if something is set up as progressive vs reactionary, progressive is almost guaranteed an easy ride and plausibility.

I would have died if I had been asked to model a vulva or penis out of play dough in a classroom as a child. Also it’s so much easier to model a penis.

And yes. It seems harmless as its playdough...

But it really isn't appropiate and invites criticism from others "hahaha does your vulva look like that irl etc.."

I think Tanya did well at highlighting, and reiterating several times this point:
The managing of the children's access to porn crisis, and safeguarding, need to be a whole school, culture wide, inclusive of parents approach (as in the 'safeguarding is everyone's business' understanding). As opposed to it being held in the purview of individual, outside, non- material sharing, and unregulated training groups- from the 'wild west' of RSE training.

That's what I took away, and hopefully others listening who hadn't thought of it this way might do.

I was just so pleased to hear this discussed and debated so openly at last on radio 4 - it could get people thinking for themselves outside of their bubbles and see that any pushback they might not initially agree with has at least valid points to consider.
DSQT could do with similar discussions I think.

That was in an earlier epsidoe of this programme:

A spate of protests outside libraries has focused attention on the idea of drag queen story hours - drag queens reading stories to young children in libraries and other public spaces. For some, it’s the perfect way to build acceptance of LGBTQ+ identities, plus it’s fun and fabulous for the children. For others, it risks exposing young minds to adult entertainment and complex themes of sex and gender.

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0019rrf

Beware, listening could give you the rage:

Yes absolutely all that is fantastic you're right. And yes it's so good it's getting air time now.

After all the issues with mermaids and stonewall etc. it should be more in people's consciousness the dangers of buying in teaching on these issues.

The way teaching is going though it's increasingly common to buy in bits of Curriculum

Yes, it was hard to get that across and Sophie was disingenuous and side stepped a lot of issues. We were so pleased to be invited though to get some exposure.

I am just so pleased that this is finally being discussed - we've come such a long way!

Well done Tanya!

Oh @2fallsfromSSA I wasn't at all criticising you. You/Tanya/SSA were and are amazing and thanyou so much.

I meant more the bias in programming/the way it was put together.