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/

I think many parents would be horrified to learn that parents are not allowed to freely see the content of such lessons, unless they go into the school and sit with someone whilst they go through it. What other subject would this be allowed?

Im glad the programme was done, these “outside” resource companies know we are onto them and that now, even the BBC will talk about them.

Well done SSA - you are amazing.

Why are outside providers not subject to training on KCSIE and safeguarding every year as school staff are? They should also all have extended DBS checks like school staff. Some of this stuff is quite clearly against what is said in KCSIE - it's anti-safeguarding.

The idea a child can just leave a classroom is anti-safeguarding - many adults wouldn't feel comfortable doing that and children will not go against the authority of responsible adults, we know this this is WHY we HAVE safeguarding in part - JFC! Paedophiles have been seeking positions of authority over children forever - again, why we have safeguarding. Children are not mini-adults hence the need for safeguarding!

I know. Don't worry!

Also KCSIE clearly says that Safeguarding is a priority over GDPR. IF safeguarding is a priority over GDPR then it is also over copyright. I'm not sure if this is in KCSIE explicitly but I thought DfE had clarified that? Copyright is not an excuse for safeguarding failures which is what this is.

By the way it really boils my piss that these dodgy safeguarding destroying orgs are so well funded whereas SSA are a bunch of mums who care about safeguarding and fitting this in around eleventy billion other jobs.

Thank you SSA and I will donate at my next paycheck.

Oh bloody hell !
Thanks nauticant (erm.... Maybe not thanks exactly)
I won't listen right now. Will undo the good feeling I got from listening to this one. Need to savour that and have a break from feeling the rage!

(I'll wait til I need to get galvanised to deep clean something)

Thanks

The school where the parent wasn’t able to view the materials now doesn’t use School of Sexuality, I don’t know if that was mentioned.

Agree Tanya came across really well.

Safe Schools Alliance are exactly what these groups fear, the type of women with children in school who post on FWR and care about child safeguarding.

Agree. This is the rub - 'children are not mini-adults', Sophie Whitehead kept referring to 'people' in her discussion, rather than children. It's a linguistic sleight of hand that shifts the specificity in what is being discussed.

Would have loved double the length of show and some real probe into teaching consent and how that interacts and interplays with children (not having) consented to graphic lessons.

God help these well-meaning, dangerous idiots when they become parents or another event brings them face-to-face with the realities of the vital necessity of safeguarding. It's going to be a bump back to earth.

You mean ... mothers? If you're in education and you see mothers as the enemy, something has gone badly wrong in your brain.

Quite, Arabella.

Just catching up on all this, having also listened to the programme.

Firstly, thank you to Tanya, not easy circumstances to have been live on air.

I thought the bbc interviewer was biased towards Sophie but equally I think many parents (and general public) will have been shocked to hear about the dice game and modelling genitalia out of playdoh going on in schools. Also the point about external providers being unregulated.

I’m glad the profile is being raised on this subject. Well done SSAUK.

I thought it was interesting that they included the history of teaching about “the birds & the bees”. A device to show the ‘moral uptightness’ of the past and to imply the new and all-encompassing ‘sexuality’ now being taught in schools was progress away from that prudery and withholding of knowledge.

It also meant that there wasn’t enough time for the ‘political’ topic which Tanya mentioned, and we all know that was the even more contentious Gender Identity Theory!

It’s unfortunate that the lesson content is predicated on the assumption that because some under 16s are having sex, the whole class must be taught as if they are, too. This is with regard to the ‘nuts and bolts’ of it all. I mean, imagine not having sex before 16 or not having watched porn!

The major issue in my opinion, is actually the easy access to online pornography. I suppose the content of some of these RSE lessons would seem quite tame compared to what you could watch online while getting your homework done! And that has therefore meant that RSE has had to delve in to subjects that seem very extreme, in order to mitigate the messages which easily available, unsafe and VIOLENT porn are giving to children and teenagers.

You make some excellent points here Goodweather
Ones I hadn't registered, but really strike me now you point them out. Especially about the prudery set up and assuming that all 16 year olds (or younger from discussion- 13/14?) are watching porn and are sexually active.
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I only caught a bit on the radio whilst driving, I can't find the programme on BBC sounds. Anyone got the link?

Such an interesting programme - and what a good speaker Tanya is

Sad that Sophie had no insight into how the dynamics of a peer can influence how children receive information. She's unable to imagine the potential bullying opportunities that could happen from the playdough exercise in a class with poor peer relationships where bullying thrives, girls are sexually harassed or homophobic abuse is rife. As an outsider she's unlikely to spot the pointed comment or question designed to humiliate another.

More worryingly in her quest to delve more deeply into children's views, Sophie seems unaware of the need to structure questions to ensure the issues are age appropriate rather than allow a free for all. Sophie will not be there to pick up the pieces from a child who outs themselves in a myriad of ways from an innocent question and is subsequently ridiculed or bullied. Some questions will be age inappropriate and skilled sex educators have a range of techniques to ensure that discussions with children remain boundaried.

Here you are:

www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001k13f

Just listened. I thought that it was a bit one sided favouring Sophie and putting a stop on Tanyas opinions ,more. But the elephant in the room was bouncing about. Funny that the NSPCC was held up as a bastion of safeguarding after the rubber wank man incident. As long as nobody says no, it is a free for all and children will be damaged.

Thank you Mrs Overton

Spot on @MrsOvertonsWindow

Sophie's lack of understanding of child psychology, group teaching and how to manage difficult discussions in a classroom was on show. Like so many allegedly "trained" in safeguarding, understanding age appropriate issues when talking about sex to children was sadly absent.

Sex ed teaching has to be "conservative" in schools - restricted in scope because of the different needs of children in the same class. A class of 11 year olds (or any age group) will have a range of experiences, beliefs, levels of physical and emotional maturity, not to mention children with SEN, different faiths, shy children, abused children and so on.

The assumption that there's a core of "sexual knowledge" that all children need at certain ages is poorly evidenced. These organisations trample all over children's rights to privacy & right to be protected from age inappropriate sexual information because they're poorly trained in educating children.
They're a menace.

Thanks for the info - I’m going to look out for this on BBC Sounds.

You can always complain to the Feedback program if you think it was u fair or you have positive comments. Has anyone actually counted how many times each was cut off?

Oh, thank you!

Sorry that sounds a bit arsy.

Was meant as a pointer as where feedback can be fed back to Feedback!

clear as mud