Increasingly, it feels like the Tories want to distract from their looming defeat by doing everything they can to keep everyone in a constant state of outrage. Their latest target: sex education. There has been much talk over the past couple of days about the government’s plan to ‘ban’ sex education for under nine-year-olds, as well as teaching about gender identity, in an attempt to stop students from being ‘exposed to disturbing content’.
Talk of a ‘ban’ is misplaced. Firstly, the government isn’t actually banning anything; it is merely issuing new ‘guidance’. Secondly, any new guidance is completely unnecessary because, well, there isn’t actually any sex education on the curriculum currently for under-nines. Sex education is not compulsory for primary schools; relationships education is. By the end of primary school, children need to have been taught about issues such as bullying, being safe online and in the real world, and what healthy friendships look like. This is hardly radical indoctrination, but common sense. In their final year of primary school, students are taught about sex from a biological perspective, but if sex education goes beyond this, then schools have to set it out in their policy and are legally obliged to consult with parents. If parents are still unhappy, they have the right to remove their child from sex education lessons.
Parents may have genuine questions about what is appropriate to teach at what age, particularly in secondary schools, where pupils can mature at vastly different rates. Yet it is impossible to have a reasonable, nuanced discussion about this because of rabid reports that vastly exaggerate the reality of what is happening inside schools. Tory MP Miriam Cates, for example, claimed in the Commons that children are being given ‘graphic lessons on oral sex, how to choke your partner safely and 72 genders’. Yet in the 100-page NCSU (New Social Covenant Unit) Report, which Cates commissioned, the number 72 only appears as page numbers and footnotes, while the only reference to choking is from a blog for adults that has nothing to do with schools’ curriculum. There is no reliable evidence that inappropriate material is widespread or a significant problem in English schools, so why is the government listening to these puritanical, feverish imaginings?
The truth is most students want more sex education, not less. If anything, the data suggests there is now a culture of fear in schools, with schools being exceedingly cautious about Relationships and Sex Education. One survey of young people aged between 16 and 25 found that one in seven had not received any sex and relationships education during their time at secondary school. Another survey of nearly 3,000 secondary school girls found that less than half felt they had been taught vital information about healthy sex and relationships, and only 17 per cent believed their male peers had been taught enough about this.
This should concern ministers far more than unsubstantiated claims that students are being sexualised or prematurely forced to lose their ‘innocence.’ Thirty years of research on the efficacy of sex education has shown that it reduces rates of sexual activity, sexual risk behaviours, sexually transmitted infections, teenage pregnancy, and, most importantly, helps to prevent children from being abused by teaching them about consent and boundaries. We can’t rely on children to learn about this at home; according to the NHS, nine out of ten children who are sexually abused know or are related to their abuser. Evidently, home is not a safe space for everyone.
Even if it is, we don’t want children and teenagers to find out their answers to their questions and curiosities online. Instead of ‘banning’ sex education in primary schools – something which does not, technically, even exist – we should probably worry a bit more about smartphone use, and the fact that more than a quarter of primary school students have watched porn.
The truth is that, despite the hysteria, the vast, vast majority of teachers are not ideologues who are encouraging students to become transgender and polyamorous: they are simply trying to help students navigate the challenges of adolescence whilst not looking too embarrassed at putting a condom on a cucumber. If primary and secondary students are being exposed to dangerous content and ideas, I promise you it is not in the classroom. We should be doing everything we can to make sure students are not resorting to educating themselves on Pornhub and TikTok.
Comments