Gillian Keegan tells schools to allow parents to see RSE materials

[RoyalCorgi]

This is good news - finally:

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/oct/23/gillian-keegan-tells-schools-to-let-parents-see-sex-education-materials

Good. Any company providing such education that is in any way reluctant to share the information with parents is deeply suspect, in my opinion. Hopefully schools will stop using companies that try to prevent it happening.

There's a good thread on twitter/x with some thoughts on 'great but...'

For those without access the top line is: schools can't just disregard copyright law because the DfE says they should. The government needs to tell schools they can't use resources which are available for public viewing. " no degree of commercial secrecy is acceptable in schools - and the only solution really is that school resources are published and open to public and regulatory scrutiny. "

Clare Page : No Secret Lessons on X: "@GillianKeegan So @RishiSunak @Number10press let’s do this properly and legislate for transparency in schools. Verbose DfE guidance on legally contested copyright exemptions and making parents swear to secrecy just to see their own childrens education, paid for by our taxes, is just unworkable." / X (twitter.com)

Anyone not fully happy to show a parent exactly what they plan to share with their child and explain why and the positives of it, is a major safeguarding red flag. If you don't have the confidence to have a difficult conversation and the ability to respect the family's views and rights even if you personally would make a different choice as a parent, then there's a capacity issue to be in a position of responsibility.

The trouble is though that these letters bounce off the politically captured. Part of this, as seen in the OU, is that they have been trained to believe it is righteous to 'move ahead of' the law, (ignore and replace democratic law with politically enforced rightthink) and that they are superior and enlightened and the law is wrong. It is going to take clear legislation and hard consequences to turn this around now, plus sorting out of the agencies who set it up. It's all been allowed to slide into this state uninterfered with for far, far too long.

They also need to ensure that the LGBetc clubs run in schools also have to outline what they are advising the children, what activities they are doing, which websites/advice/groups they point the children to. Some of these are run by/ have materials supplied by dubious external agencies.

Good

LGBTQ+ clubs do worry me. 'Let's get a group of 11-18 year olds together to talk about sexuality! What could possibly go wrong?'

Erm and where is the findings of the review that happened?

And where is the actual letter? All that's on the DfE page is a press release.

This just raises more questions than it answers.

Yes! These are a potential safeguarding nightmare, breaching so many boundaries. Children of mixed ages discussing sexual identity issues in an unplanned environment with older children / adults? With no accountability / management they're potentially setting up both adults and older students for serious allegations of grooming.

Parents need to be insisting on full accountability from schools about these. Ask for detailed programme of study, boundaries and house rules, register of attendance, record of the "curriculum" being taught (including how age appropriateness is ensured), adult management & leadership responsibilities and full compliance with guidelines about teaching SRE.

Remember all those awkward sit coms and sex comedies from the 70s, where the poor old biology teacher, a gawky male new graduate was landed with the most unwanted role in a school, sex education, with embarrassment all round and a class of baying teens? He'd do his best to pass the hot potato to the General Studies master, or the librarian etc. And it would end up with the metalwork and woodwork ex army master, lol.

Fifty years on? All the teachers have passed the scary and embarassing parcel of sex education, right out of the school, out of the education authority, into the grasp of third parties who know there would be meltdown if even 10% of their propaganda was made known.

I'd call this the pincer grip. Intersectional capture of academia after kids come out of school and go to university, Stonewalled third party non transparent indoctrination of the queer agenda in schools.

If copyright concerns really are an issue, then the govt needs to say that all those using that excuse lose their contracts, only those companies happy to be transparent can carry on with their contracts, and transparency will then be made to happen.

I remember my sex ed in primary 7 - teacher handed out a small 1/3 A4 leaflet to the girls about periods. That was it. No discussion, no questions allowed. We all just giggled and hid them. I don’t remember if the boys were in the class or if they had their own ‘talk’

Secondary School biology was purely the mechanics. I almost felt sorry for the teacher.

So, year upon year of mounting evidence of an "enlightened" class happy to literally stonewall government to keep the revolution on track, back when the government had more control of events...nothing done.

Less than 12 months ahead of a likely Labour landslide...something proposed.

All they need to do is stonewall a few more months, and then they'll have central government in tune with their intersectional aims.

If copyright concerns really are an issue, then the govt needs to say that all those using that excuse lose their contracts, only those companies happy to be transparent can carry on with their contracts, and transparency will then be made to happen.

I agree. There should be an outright ban on using copyright as an excuse not to show the material to parents.

This is from the DfE in March this year:

Gillian Keegan, the Education Secretary has written to schools to remind them of their duty to share all materials with parents. She has also made clear that copyright does not prevent them from doing so when they show materials to parents on the school premises, but that we expect schools to avoid working with providers that do not agree to share materials with parents.

https://educationhub.blog.gov.uk/2023/03/31/rshe-relationships-health-sex-education-review-curriculum-to-protect-children/

Expecting schools not to work with such providers isn't enough if they have been captured by Stonewall. Apparently some teachers can't see the safeguarding red flags all over this veil of secrecy.

I think many an harassed, well-meaning but underfunded head teacher has happily outsourced PHSE to willing, sometimes suspiciously cheap third party providers, with no understanding of the content therein.

I too believe that any external agency should be legally obligated to divulge detailed information about the content they are teaching, to the school and to any parent before a penny of public money is handed over. Any suggestion of secrecy, dressed up as copyright, needs investigation, especially as many schools appear to have a number of blue-haired 'woke' and captured young teachers.

We must remember that groups like Mermaids and Stonewall are extremely well funded, and that not all such groups' aims are pure.

This is all posturing and bluster. I'm a teacher and every school I've every worked in has the schemes of work on the schools website for parents and students to see so it's already there for every subject. They may of course be exceptions but there can't be many.

Helen Joyce wrote a long article as to how multiple attempts to see her son's RSE material was turned down by the head every time.

Surprise surprise, the ones who have something to hide, try to hide. Of course there are some suppliers who are producing materials that are not age appropriate and inaccurate/spout utter nonsense. And they are getting paid to do this.

I doubt “schemes of work” has the detail parents want to see. If it turns out there’s nothing to hide I’m sure letting parents see the material is unobjectionable.

If copyright concerns really are an issue, then the govt needs to say that all those using that excuse lose their contracts, only those companies happy to be transparent can carry on with their contracts, and transparency will then be made to happen.

Absolutely. You only need to look at the Safe Schools Alliance website to know that there are companies promoting some very dodgy material for use in RSE.

And it's mad, anyway. How many other subjects on the school curriculum are outsourced to outside bodies? I know teachers download teaching materials off the internet, and obviously schools buy textbooks, but with RSE there seems to be a wholesale handover to third parties, with little oversight from schools about the material they're using.

worrieddragon · Today 09:26

LGBTQ+ clubs do worry me.

Me too, particularly because my Year 6, ten year old daughter has joined an allies club and thinks that Pride Month needs a month, more than say, a day for women, or a day for the Holocaust, because trans people have suffered the most. And that transphobia is worse than racism, even though she's been the victim of racist bullying.

I think you are the exception, I bet you are not in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland.

My comment above was to Maddy70

If GK is right and schools should show this info, does she also back the examination of contracts for things like PFI?

I suspect not.

What happened to the expert panel review of RSHE? Today's update says the panel is being "put together", but back in June, the panel was named and apparently already at work, due to pass on its recommendations to the SoS in September.
https://educationhub.blog.gov.uk/2023/10/24/rshe-relationships-health-sex-education-review-curriculum-to-protect-children/

https://www.gov.uk/government/groups/relationships-health-and-sex-education-independent-review

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/secretary-of-state-letter-to-schools-about-sharing-curriculum-resources-with-parents

Victoria Smith has written about this in Unherd

https://unherd.com/thepost/parents-deserve-to-know-what-children-are-learning-about-sex/

https://archive.ph/BC5YP archive link if you've used all of this month's Unherd tokens.

I think it's a good piece, about not wanting to be 'that parent'. The GI brigade has been very good at using shame to silence or prevent criticism and to stay under the radar. No-one want to seem like a bigot or, heavens forbid, transphobic. And what kind of weirdo doesn't trust their child's teachers? Just what are you insinuating?

She's also written a good piece in the Critic about similar tactics used to coerce women and girls into ignoring their instincts to their own detriment and to the benefit of dodgy men.