Woman loses fight to see daughter’s sex education content

[lady69]

Well, this seems dystopian…

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/woman-loses-fight-to-see-daughters-sex-education-content-3j8cg9kkt

From the article “Page began her campaign after her daughter, then 15, came home from Hatcham College in New Cross, southeast London, saying that she had been taught to be “sex positive” and that heteronormativity was “a bad thing”.”

I don't quite understand the IP / commercial interest argument, given that the material is being "delivered" to children?

I agree. There is no possible justification for this. If for some reason the school is contractually prevented from sharing, then they should simply choose another provider which does not have these contractual restrictions.

Another issue the government really needs to get on top of quickly

She should crowdfund an appeal to the Upper Tribunal on the grounds that the lower tribunal got the public interest test wrong.

The School of Sexuality Education were involved in the Family Sex Show iirc.
Isn't there another mother going through this process, Claire(?), I think she's lost one case but is appealing.

@BaronMunchausen I can understand the argument although I disagree with it I shall do my best with the material given...

1. We invest time and money into making resources which our staff then deliver in schools
2. Because we are confident experts in this area with such experience and resources school pay us a good deal of money to come in and deliver these areas of the curriculuum
3. therefore we can make a profit, which as a private business is good business sense
4. if we gave teachers / schools copies of the resources and they showed them / gave them to parents the resources would end up online
5. Therefore our time and expertise would be wasted and schools would pay us to come and deliver lessons / wouldn't ask us to come back
6. and our business wouldn't be profitable so we'd have to close down.

When looking at statutory instruments (sex/EQA debate), I happened on this for NI:

statutoryinstruments.parliament.uk/instrument/3W5CEKl1/

It seems to indicate that this can be fixed.

I thought there was legislation to say that parents must be able to see what their children are taught in PSHE lessons. So how could the judge come up with this answer?

In that case we'll have to lobby to stop all external providers being used for sex education in schools full stop. It's not acceptable that parents are unable to see what their kids are being taught in this area.

Their argument could be used by any company that provides learning resources for any subject. My DC had computer based learning while at school. There was nothing to stop me taking screenshots of their online textbooks and posting them on line. Those companies weren't huffing and puffing about parents being able to see their content.

What makes this company different to any other educational resource company in the eyes of the law?

@BaronMunchausen

This clearly persuaded the judge but I find myself less than convinced, for a number of reasons

1. companies and teachers making resources and then selling them to other schools and teachers is totally a thing. Generally you can see some or all of the resource as a thumbnail / watermarked version etc. You can look at it clearly judge whether it's suitable for your curriculum needs and students and then pay for the right to use it in the classroom, print as many as you need etc. . It would then be delivered by qualified teachers using the resource to support them (this is REALLY COMMON in subjects like PHSE as the teachers delivering it are usually specialists in a different area).

2. Where outside speakers come in they usually have a lot of expertise and cost a lot of money. It is usual for them to speak to the entire year group (or something like KS3 girls) in an auditorium / assembly type setting. The lack of feedback or questioning of the children helps to maintain boundaries and keep children both safe and feeling safe despite the fact that the visiting adult is not a qualified teacher.

Something very different seems to be going on with this company and I think it is probably correct that the more parents knew about them the less business the company would get.

Thanks @howdoesatoastermaketoast But having sight of materials (as the children do, after all) doesn't enable copying of slides and media. Even if it did, copyright law still applies.

One would like to think that worthwhile materials could be made Creative Commons, but the franchising model militates against that and encourages reinvention of the wheel.

Agreed.

Indeed Baron, that's one of the reasons I personally find their argument deeply unpersuasive. The head of department should be able to sit down with a concerned parent, talk though the learning objectives and planned materials, though you'd need to book an appointment to do so.

Since my DDs thankfully just missed all this (age 22,24) forgive me if I'm not fully up with legislation etc.

But my understanding is that external providers coming in is a fairly recent (? last five years) occurrence, I think I read somewhere about changes in the law that allowed it.

While there were people like Dr Christian Jessen waxing lyrical about "experts" giving high quality education (and also advocating for porn to be used in a teaching scenario "so they understand what it's about" or some crap like that) I think many of us (Me) pretty much had no idea what the implications were. In hindsight it was so obvious that this would attract organisations with different standards to what most parents would have expected (putting it mildly).

We really need to get these organisations out of schools. And the curriculum imo needs to be tightly controlled and of course available for parents to see.

Yes.

Yes. For all that sex ed in Scotland has its issues, ALL of the curriculum materials & resources are online, you can read all the information/lesson plans, and feedback on them.

Seems mad to me that it's not the case elsewhere.

Created a situation where external providers think they have the right to teach secret stuff to children on the subject of sex, consent, etc?

What could possibly go wrong?

It should be. Its such an important subject that firstly it should be completely available to the parents to view and secondly all schools should have to teach exactly the same stuff. Straight from government. No third parties.

So if school staff are allowed to see the materials there must already be a risk to copyright. OK, widening the pool of who is able to see them increases the commercial risk but if a charity finds that their work has been stolen wouldn’t they have some sort of legal recourse? They might say that this legal route would be difficult and onerous but it is beyond difficult and onerous for parents to safeguard their children when denied the right to know what they are being taught.

As pp said, the answer is getting these external companies out of sex education in schools entirely. The government can produce their own materials.

100%

The answer surely is to permit parents the ability to view (but not copy) the properly licensed materials on the school premises. Then there is no question of infringement. It’ll be a pain for the school but they should be required to allow this.

I agree government materials would be better. The schools are outsourcing because they fear they don’t understand the gender woo properly - who could?