Jigsaw PHSE materials for schools - can anyone help please?

[CraggyIslandTouristBoard]

Hello, our Y5 DC is due to have PHSE/RHSE lessons and the school is using materials from Jigsaw but is insisting if I want to see them I go into school. (I've quoted all the Gillian Keegan stuff at them but they're clearly keen not to make it easy for me).

I'd much rather digest them in my own time than with a teacher standing over me. Can anyone shed any light on them or pm me about sending me a copy please? I believe you're not meant to share them for copyright reasons so I obviously wouldn't suggest you do anything to breach copyright....

Appreciate different schools may pick and choose different Jigsaw materials. I've found the Safer Schools Alliance note on them but it focuses on the Y6 stuff. Maybe/hopefully it means that there's not much gender bollocks in the Y5 material but it would be good to know either way. Thanks!

Oh but none of this is happening in schools! <massive EYEROLL>

OP this is infuriating. I had the same issue with our PSHE teacher and finally went in and took pictures on my phone and started writing it out longhand at which point the teacher grudgingly said she could send me a watermarked parental review version (the watermark made it almost unreadable, but I managed).

If they don't have anything to hide, they certainly have a funny way of showing it!!

I’m expecting them to prohibit me from screenshotting it, so I’ll likely have to sit there and copy it out longhand 🙄

The stupid thing is that their blatantly uncooperative stance just makes me want to go in that much harder than if they’d just supplied the materials when I asked (which is more than a month ago…).

Its just so arrogant and dismissive - and this is literally the first time I’ve contacted them about anything substantive, despite my kids having been there for a combined total of 5 years now!

I know - it''s the Streisand effect and makes you wonder exactly what it is they don't want us to see. If everything is above board, why make it so difficult? The statutory guidance for RSE curriculum planning says that there should be no surprises, parents should know when and what is being taught.

I don't understand why PSHE teachers and school leadership think this is a good attitude to have as it just creates mistrust - if you stand by your RSE curriculum, and it was properly consulted on, you should be pleased and proud to share it far and wide.

I had a meeting with the PSHE teacher and deputy head and they must have said at least 10 times "we have nothing to hide" while also refusing to answer the most basic questions about what was being taught, as well as what was in the materials. When I finally got them there were issues on nearly every page - pointed each of them out and got the response "oh we don't teach that/we don't teach it like that/we don't present it that way" - so I wasted hours of my time fighting to see these materials that you don't use anyway...? And you won't tell me what you teach instead...? Pull the other one - it's got bells on.

They're on here under Gender Stereotyping:

"Jigsaw explains it in this way in their glossary in child-speak:
“Cisgender: Someone who is male and happy being a boy or a female who is happy being a girl.”
And in their adult-speak glossary:
“Cisgender: a person whose gender identity, gender expression and biological sex align (e.g. woman, feminine and female).”[14]
If you are a girl and you are not ‘feminine’ then you must be ‘trans’ or ‘non binary’ according to this model of understanding."

https://www.transgendertrend.com/parliamentary-briefing-teaching-gender-identity-rse-curriculum/

I found a line from a previous email from April that I cced to head and dep head "As a parent since 201x I have always found staff at X school to be commendably frank, communicative and open with me and DH. I have therefore been taken aback by the lack of transparency and cooperation I have met with since the end of last year, as I am only making a reasonable request (and one to which I am entitled, according to the statutory guidance) to review the content of the RSE curriculum and understand what is being taught in lessons. The unhelpful responses I have received so far does not fill me with confidence that the school is able or willing to stand by its RSE curriculum".

(I've been fighting our battle since Dec 2023 and I think/hope the new guidance will sort the whole issue out which will be a blessed relief for all concerned!)

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/engaging-parents-with-relationships-education-policy

And there's discussion here about an article. SSA say their stuff is hard to get access to.

https://x.com/safeschoolsuk/status/1529759299920179200?s=46&t=WHoOZZ_3Kv5G6-FyQuvE0LQ

But they cover Jigsaw a bit here in a more recent blog:

safeschoolsallianceuk.net/2023/03/27/bad-rse-in-schools-where-is-the-evidence/

And in here.

safeschoolsallianceuk.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Parents-Guide-to-external-PSHE-RSE-providers.pdf#page28

Thankyouthankyouthankyou @Xiaoxiong and @ResisterRex !

Those are really excellent and frankly unanswerable points Xiaoxiong, I will certainly be making them if and when the school does deign to arrange a meeting.

And that's really useful @ResisterRex , I'm keen to go into this meeting armed with an idea of what to talk about specifically in relation to Jigsaw, and now I have a better idea. I did ask them to provide me with the Y6 material as well as Y5 but I don't know if they will. I need to dust off the Cass recommendations to see what I can pick out from there (it's obviously focused on medical treatment rather than schools but I remember there were one or two helpful nuggets in this context too). I'm almost certain the materials won't have been revised following Cass which is another stick I can use to beat them.

I have been in a similar situation, we had to go into the school to view Jigsaw resources, the school promised that they didn't teach gender identity ideology in RSE.

Turns out, they are teaching it as part of EDI and LGBTQ+ History Month.

I may have had a little smirk behind the back of the Deputy Head, today.

Good luck explaining to Ofsted why you are still teaching it as fact, telling parents you're not teaching it as RSE, but devoting two whole months to assemblies and lessons on GI.

https://educationhub.blog.gov.uk/2023/10/24/rshe-relationships-health-sex-education-review-curriculum-to-protect-children/

Is this any use. It’s from last year and there is a bit on copyright eg can be shared in certain circumstances. There maybe something more updated since then.

Have you searched here for threads on Jigsaw? There are a few good ones.

I tried but found very little of relevance (but a few talking about kids who enjoy jigsaw puzzles). Will have another go…

Mumsnet search is not great but if you google ‘jigsaw Mumsnet phse’ then quite a few useful threads come up.

That's shocking!! There was a video by the D&I Jester (I think that's what he's called - he's pretty annoying which is his shtick but he makes some good points) - he said don't get too excited about the new guidance as it just bans GI teaching in PHSE so activist teachers will still be able to slip it into other lessons.

But as I discovered yesterday the guidance is just draft and is now out for an 8 week consultation. Which is bad as I was hoping it was now in force, but good as we can make this point, that the final guidance needs to make clear that GI teaching is banned full stop, not just in PHSE/RHSE.

So please everyone, complete the consultation as we know the troons will be lobbying against it!

New RSHE guidance: What it means for sex education lessons in schools – The Education Hub (blog.gov.uk)

Review of the RSHE statutory guidance - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

Yep!

Have a couple of very long threads on it, but was found out locally, so needed a name change.

TWO MONTHS?

That's ridiculous. For any topic.

Right after some more digging I have established that Jigsaw's trans nonsense is plugged in a single Y6 lesson (lesson 2) taught in the Autumn term under the topic title "Celebrating Difference".

A GC friend has sent me the slides and Jigsaw teacher notes for this lesson which are very helpful in terms of structuring my concerns to the school.

Yarp.

The school also celebrates Black History Month, and occasionally Disability History month.

Of course, I have no issues with this at all.

However, they completely ignored Women's History Month, and International Woman's Day.

There's also a Yr2 lesson which introduces non binary (a child who doesn't conform to stereotypes...). I complained to dd's school about that one and got them to withdraw it. Have you looked at the Transgender Trend and Safe Schools Alliance analysis of Jigsaw? Both Yr2 and Yr6 lessons covered on at least one of those.

Update in case anyone is interested! I met the head teacher and deputy head (who does a lot of PHSE teaching in Y6) the upshot of which was that:

• they don't teach gender ideology at all in school
• they had never seen the Jigsaw lesson that I shared with them (both had taught using Jigsaw at other schools too and had never seen it there)
• they were shocked by the lesson, and could not understand why other schools may teach it given both its content and the fact that the subject isn't on the primary PHSE/RSE curriculum.
• the deputy commented that following last week's new RHSE guidance, any provider which had been offering material such as this Jigsaw lesson should be pulling it immediately as schools would be on very dangerous ground to continue with it.

So good news all round, for my kids at least - appreciate others not so lucky.

Good to hear OP!

That sounds amazing @CraggyIslandTouristBoard

Compare and contrast to my DDs school, who (initially threatened me with the police) promised that they didn't teach GI in RSE, only for us to find out a year later that they teach it as part of LGBTQ+ History Month and Pride Month.

And when we raised it as an issue, we're told that they don't give preferential treatment to either side of the debate, and that the resources they use are "well reviewed"

I live for the day this is over.

That's a good outcome OP - well done. As too many schools appear to have outsourced their safeguarding to some of the most unsuitable organisations in the world, it's now up to parents to persist and insist that safeguarding children takes priority over selling a porn soaked ideology to children.

Just seen you update OP.

If it’s helpful (to you or other posters) that sounds very similar to my experience.

DS is current year 6. School started using Jigsaw for PHSE last year and invited parents to a meeting about the content across different Year groups. There was a lot of focus on respect for others, respecting differences, positivity about bodies and health which was age appropriate. The year 5/6 sessions also included information about puberty but was very fact based about how bodies change and that feeling uncomfortable or uncertain is ok. The head did say they had chosen the “less graphic” options to teach because they felt that was more in keeping with the school ethos and the life experiences of the children in school (it’s a small rural school).
I haven’t heard anything from DS about anything being taught in other lessons and I think they are doing more sex education/puberty sessions after half term. I have always been clear with DS about gender stereotypes and that male/female man/woman is about us as animals and reproduction just as it is for other mammals and we can’t change that so I think if this was discussed at school I’d have heard about it.

Urgh, I don't know if Jigsaw have removed/ changed it, but a couple of years ago, their manifesto / leaflet thing said "boys matter" in big bold lettering and then as an afterthought in much smaller letters said 'girls matter too'...wish I had screen shot it now, but it absolutely enraged me, I think it also speaks volumes about the company.