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“We are calling on the next government to discard the draft guidance and begin this process in due course, focusing on the needs of children and young people and supporting teachers to deliver a high-quality, inclusive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chief executive Jonathan Baggaley, warned he had “deep concerns about the development process and shortcomings of the draft guidance, particularly on critical aspects of children’s safeguarding, wellbeing and inclusion”.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/

It should be but it isn't. So what else can you do?

They sounded pretty happy about it all. Any answer on content you’re after?

No, because that wasn't the point I was discussing on this post.

I asked what age and got your usual crying laughing emojis about dick pics

I don’t think it’s all that to encourage this for boys generally and adults should think more about toxic masculinity and the culture they are propagating

I can see why you’d avoid it.

Maybe someone who is pushing for primary age will say

what else can you do?

Lobby for regulation. Which, ironically, I'd have thought some of the signatories such as the Internet Watch Foundation would know and would do. But now we know we can't trust them in their core role - which is detection and takedown of CSAM

Lobbying takes years and years and often ends up achieving nothing. You still need to mitigate harms in the meantime.

By using what?

I’m not sure what you’re all pushing for

Lobbying takes years and years and often ends up achieving nothing

Well let's all give up and go home then. FML

That's not what I meant at all.

The law already exists for addressing internet harms, but they seem to completely ignore things like Pornhub and concentrate on hurty words.

If there's a 'huge' number of children who've seen porn by the time they're in Y7, then the parents need to be educated about allowing their children to freely access the internet.

I don't think parents should have the right to withdraw their children from lessons. It should be compulsory
Thankfully we don't live in a totalitarian state.

Just a reminder, often a knowledge of sexual issues way before their years is a red flag that abuse can be happening to a child. To educate all kids about knowledge of sexual issues will make that harder to identify and much harder to get kids who are being abused to safety.

People who keep pushing boundaries younger and younger are in my book, irresponsible at best, depraved at worst and anything in between.

We have parent events to teach online safety in primary

The pp below do they want extra outside that? Examples?

My kids are primary age. I think at their school they have it about right and are teaching RHSE roughly in line with the age guides proposed.

The messages about safety online and in person are already drummed into them -all without having lessons explaining what pornography is.

The message that these age limits are some puritanical, pearl clutching or religiously motivated attempt to shield children from sex and relationships are quite cynical I think.

I'd have more time for dissent that welcomed the framework but suggested tweaks, but the fact that they seem to not want any kind of framework rings alarm bells for me.

Preferably I'd like to see a proper national curriculum for sex education and a banning of 3rd party suppliers (no doubt the same people will be angry over that).

There are too many stories of 3rd parties deliberately giving explicit education (teaching primary school children about anal sex etc) or misleading theories (100+ genders, asking primary school children what 100+ sexual orientation they are, etc).

Too many are seeing schools are indoctrination facilities and teaching children either propaganda or just incorrect material.

The consultation is about changes to the existing framework. Like you, I think it works OK at the moment.

I'm not saying no framework. I don't like some of the proposed changes and have explained why.

Yes this is what I want too

Hard agree.
So far no poster keen on talking to 10 year olds about porn has answered my earlier question: How do you teach young children about porn /adult sexual fetish in an "age appropriate way"? In a way that doesn't abuse or traumatise the majority of children who won't have accessed porn and for who the idea of kink, fetish, anal sex etc?

Good to see plenty of pushback against the allegation that "Massive amount of pearl clutching going on, under the pretext of "the children". When really we are talking about young adults" Why would anyone make a comment like that when women, mothers, educators on this thread are teasing out difficult issues about SRE and children?

It is of course a tactic that enrages posters and can lead to some quite cross responses and subsequent deletions. The only people who benefit from that are those trying to stop challenging discussions about safeguarding children.

I'm not a teacher, but I imagine you would teach them they might see adult stuff on the Internet that they find disgusting, scary or upsetting. This is how you report it. This is who you can talk to about it. This is what to do if you see it in school.

Done.

Blanket bans of topics have unintended consequences.

Also I am a mother and strongly object (as I'm sure anyone would) to posts implying I'm a man or a child abuser.

I don’t know why adults use those lines either. They are in no way helpful to children.

Teaching parents and dc internet safety is a good way to go, what is the content that posters want outside that?

That drawing below and the idea all children are ok with it is also the wrong way to go. It reminds me of male toxicity and expecting girls to laugh along with it.

It’s part of a culture we should be striving to move away from.

I think having defined ages for particular topics won't affect the schools who are already teaching things at an age appropriate level, but will stop the minority of usually outside agencies who get it wrong, and will give parents more confidence.

In the last couple of weeks in our parents' WhatsApp group we've had some debating withdrawing their kids from RHSE sex education, I think guidance like this will give those parents who are uncertain the assurance they need, which will benefit a lot of children who might otherwise miss out altogether.

None! The consultation is about proposed changes to RHSE. I don't want to see a ban on teaching under certain ages because it could stop the teaching that's currently happening.

If you are happy with how this is currently taught in schools, why are you supporting a campaign to change it?

That's not "teaching about porn" which is what was stated earlier? That's an appropriate warning which would take a minute or 2 to deliver. Just as we remind children of all sorts of hazards without necessarily devoting curriculum time to the subject.

Not sure who your subsequent post was aimed at. I have merely commented that posters who use the phrase "pearl clutching going on under the pretext of children" on a thread where women are talking about safeguarding is a shaming technique. Attempting to silence posters by making them feel foolish / old fashioned when talking about safeguarding children.

As Mumsnet remind us - nobody really knows who any of us are - we can only be judged by what we write on here.