100 organisations ask Labour to abandon Tory revised guidelines on RSHE

[IwantToRetire]

The Conservative government launched a consultation in May on planned updates to guidance first issued in 2019, following a review of the reforms.

It proposed age limits on “sensitive” topics, ordered schools not to teach about “gender identity” and to share materials with parents.

Ministers were accused at the time of stirring up “culture war” issues in the run-up to the election.

The consultation closes today.

To coincide with its closure, more than 100 organisations including the ASCL and NAHT leaders’ unions, the PSHE Association, Sex Education Forum, Barnardo’s, Refuge and Everyone’s Invited have issued a joint statement calling for a “fresh start” to the review.

“We are calling on the next government to discard the draft guidance and begin this process in due course, focusing on the needs of children and young people and supporting teachers to deliver a high-quality, inclusive curriculum.”

Lucy Emmerson, CEO of the Sex Education Forum, said age restrictions would be a “backward step making children more vulnerable to abuse and harm”.

PSHE association chief executive Jonathan Baggaley, warned he had “deep concerns about the development process and shortcomings of the draft guidance, particularly on critical aspects of children’s safeguarding, wellbeing and inclusion”.

And Lynn Perry, chief executive of Barnardo’s, said introducing age limits to RSHE topics “risks children missing out on crucial teaching about abuse and exploitation”.

Continues at https://schoolsweek.co.uk/labour-faces-pressure-to-ditch-tory-rshe-reforms/

So is your answer to the age question now 12 not 16?

Ate you including those ‘dick pics’ as you called them or what?

Well to me you are coming across as someone with no experience of teenagers at all and a very dogmatic and ideological approach.

16-18 year olds can legally have sex. The best way to protect them from predatory men is education about healthy relationships and open routes to discuss any worries and concerns.

A model where sex is seen as shameful, harmful and discussions not allowed is regressive, harmful and one we know doesn't work.

You try to shut me up with insults but it doesn't change reality.

Having seen bs having regularly watching porn is completely different. Even 1/4 is not enough to warrant the system should in anyway forcing those down the throat of all the other 3/4 children! It causes more damage than harm as a whole.

I'm talking about age appropriate explanation of what children should do if they see porn. We manage to discuss the "pants rule" with very young children for example. I'm talking about that kind of thing.

I don't think its controversial. Banning schools teaching about porn altogether potentially leaves 25% of children distressed, upset and out of options if they see something upsetting. Especially if they come from a family where discussions about sex and bodies are seen as embarrassing or taboo.

A model where sex is seen as shameful, harmful and discussions not allowed is regressive, harmful and one we know doesn't work.

No one is advocating this. But you know that.

In practice it doesn't take much regulation for the pornography distributors to bow out of their accord, even just mandating actual confirmed age verification (not just clicking an "I Am Over 18" button) does the trick: https://www.newsweek.com/map-shows-states-where-pornhub-blocked-1879777

I ageee with you and would like to see the government do this as a bare minimum, with a view to more restrictions later on. Best we can do without this is harm reduction through education.

Actually pp is advocating primary age so earlier than 12

What exposure do they want? Their response earlier was to laugh about dick pics from their teens

So is it that? They are pushing for exposure in class?

We do the PANTs rule which is good and online safety which can include a broad remit of how to be safe. What exposure are they arguing for exactly

The logical result of this argument is not to tell kids what to do if they are being abused because not all kids get abused.

What specifically do you want to show primary age children?

Imagery, such as?

I don't think anyone on this thread wants schools to show pornography to children, if that was what you're implying.

I didn't say I wanted to show them anything. That's not the point of my post.

I remember this, I’m sure. The relentless attacks in this corner of the internet have been something to behold. This chipping away at discussions of safeguarding must never be accepted and must always be countered and resisted.

What Sexplain et al are saying is that the teenaged boys they spoke with were by and large wise to the fact that unsolicited messages they recieved from "hot Russian girl" or whatever are actually from "digital group organised activities" (their phrase) i.e. port sites hoping to make money out of the boys.
This is what they say about the girls:
"Girls, however, had a much harder time across our groups clearly identifying a motive or understanding these as digital group-organised activities; rather they positioned the senders as “paedos,” “desperate old men.” and “flashers”."
So, the girls mistakenly think they're being preyed upon by abusive men. In actual fact this is content generated by, well, I guess they think porn sites to lure the girls in?
That's of a piece with current Queer Theory ideas about female people being just as turned on by pornographic content as male poeple, and it's only our repressive socialisation that stops us enjoying all the full empowerful pleasures of getting our rocks off watching strangers doing cruel and painful things to each other. (And where what I've written here would be dismissed as "kink shaming.") Which would lead them to believe that porn sites would be as motivated to send sexual content to female teenagers as male, in order to draw them into spending money, by pretending to be sexy (male) strangers.
In my experience, anecdotal of course and I don't work for reputable institutions like Sexplain, every dic pic anyone I know has been sent has been from an individual. Most of them are paedos, desperate old men, and flashers. Not a single one has been a "digital group organised activity." The teenaged girls are absolutely rightr, they don't need educating out of their instincts.

I think you have misunderstood my posts. Maybe read again.

What is it you want? Can you give an example

Or maybe answer the question, @CassieMaddox

I think a sizeable number of men get off on sending women dick pics. Online dating apparently is rife with it.

Personally I think boys are getting bots, girls are getting actual online abuse from nasty predatory men. They need to be supported in how to deal with it.

They need to be supported in how to deal with it

No, the internet should be regulated to protect children from sexual harm. It's not the responsibility of children to protect themselves from adults. I doubt you'll ever get it though.

Sorry lily I misunderstood your post
I agree with you. But I also didn't read the paper as suggesting that girls were subject to the same as boys. I read it as girls were right in their assessment so a different teaching model needed to be developed to teach boundaries and how to deal with it.

Its horrific for girls though. I wish we could just shut Pandora box by banning sex education and pretending nothing like this happens online.

No thanks. You were laughing about your teens drawing dick pics etc in response to the age question.

And you are making a case to lower to primary age

If it’s now not laughing at dick pics then what? What content do you feel primary age should see?

What content do you feel primary age should see?

There won't be an answer.

And that drawing below shouldn’t be in any class. There are better ways to move away from rape culture than approach it like that in schools.

Adults should be better at dealing with this than that

Let’s see. Maybe someone will be explicit on what they want

Nothing in that post suggests she was laughing about it.

Yes, you've misunderstood.

I think quite a lot of primary age children are exposed to porn, they need support from schools on how to deal with it. Banning teaching below y7 as per guidelines would stop this happening and therefore be damaging to those children.

Separately, I know teen boys are strangely obsessed with drawing pictures of erections. Therefore I don't think the methods of vulva play doh and felt tip drawings of elections for 15/16 year olds are harmful.

You seem to have got muddled up in your mind and think I'm saying primary age children should be doing felt tip erections. Hopefully it's just confusion rather than a direct attempt to misrepresent me.