UK: Parents are kept in the dark about
the content of 'personal education'
No issue I have raised in the Any Questions
column over the past nine years has angered so many readers quite as
much as last week's item on 12-year-olds being taught about anal,
oral and digital sex.
Secondary school children are given dolls in lessons
on baby care. Parents and grandparents wrote in droves to say how
horrified, appalled, disgusted and outraged they were. Almost without
exception, they demanded to know where the lesson materials my
correspondent described had originated, who had authorised them and how
widely they were being used.
They also wanted to know how to discover what their
own children were being taught in the name of "personal, social and
health education" (PSHE) and what they could do if they did not approve.
In seeking the answers, I have come to three stark conclusions.
First, the use of these crude and explicit materials
is apparently widespread.
Second, the school where my correspondent was required
to use them has not told parents precisely what their 12-year-olds are
being taught.
And, third, parents everywhere have virtually no hope
of discovering the content of their children's sex education lessons.
To explain this entails naming the school where the
materials surfaced. It was King's Manor, a comprehensive with 1,250
pupils and below-average results in Shoreham, West Sussex.
The "schemes of work" - the most offensive of which
contained descriptions of anal, oral and digital sex and references to
"blow jobs" and mutual masturbation - were compiled and distributed by
Claire Barr, then head of Key Stage 3.
At this point, I should record that although Heidi
Brown, the school's head teacher, recognised the documents I described
to her, she flatly denied that they had played any part in the sex
education of her Year 8 (12-year-old) pupils. However, quite apart from
my correspondent's testimony, the words King's Manor and Year 8 are
printed at the top of each one.
What I did learn from Mrs Brown is that Miss Barr, who
moved in September to become assistant head of another West Sussex
comprehensive, is regarded as "a leading light" in the county's PSHE
programme. From that I conclude that all Year 8 pupils in all 40
secondary schools in West Sussex - which, incidentally, is Conservative
controlled - are vulnerable to being taught in this way.
What can parents do about it? If King's Manor is
anything to go by, very little. They will see no mention of sex
education in the published Year 8 curriculum for PSHE. All that says,
under the heading of "relationships and health" is: "Students learn
about forming and keeping positive relationships, how healthy bodies and
healthy minds equal healthy lives and how to look after your bodies in
times of change." Who could possibly object to that?
If they press, they will be told, as Mrs Brown told
me, that the school's sex education policy had been approved by the
governors, that parents knew "in outline" what it contained, that none
of them had ever complained, and "no, of course we don't show parents
detailed lesson plans".
Yet it is only in the detailed lesson plans that
parents will find what is being taught about anal, oral and digital sex
and only in the teacher notes that accompany them will they discover,
for example, that the recommended teaching about anal sex is confined to
"protection and lubricant must be used".
So where does that leave the Department for
Education's "Sex and Relationship Education Guidance"? Grandly, this
proclaims: "Pupils should be taught about the nature and importance of
marriage for family life, about the importance of stable and loving
relationships, respect, love and care."
Sternly, it goes on: "Schools should ensure that
pupils are protected from teaching and materials which are
inappropriate, having regard to the age and cultural background of the
pupils concerned." In the case of King's Manor - and of how many other
schools? - such guidance is clearly not worth the paper it is written
on.
What about Ofsted? Look up its report on King's Manor
and you will find that while the inspectors judged the school overall as
merely "satisfactory", they thought the teaching of PSHE was "good".
Why can't parents just ask their children what they
have been taught in sex education? But how many 12-year-olds would want
to take home the details of lessons on blow-jobs, mutual masturbation
and the rest of it? The fact is that parents are fed bland statements
and kept in the dark. Little wonder, as Ofsted records, that only about
0.04 per cent of pupils - four in every 10,000 - are withdrawn from
non-statutory sex education lessons. (The statutory elements, which are
in the national science curriculum, cover anatomy, puberty and the
biological aspects of sexual reproduction.)
So are my readers and I being paranoid? I don't think
so. What I have not yet been able to discover, because Miss Barr has
failed to return my calls, is where she acquired her materials.
I am certain she did not write them herself, and a
number of teachers have told me they thought that they recognised them.
I would very much like to know more. In the meanwhile, I can do no
better than conclude with some readers' comments.
"If you teach children to have sex, they will," wrote
Coleen Goodman. "The number of teenage pregnancies [now the highest in
Western Europe] has risen sharply since the Government started
'educating' our children in this way."
"If I were to allude to these topics with this age
group," said Stephen Lally, a youth worker, "I would expect to be
arrested; this is tantamount to child sex abuse."
And, from Mr R E Winmill: "What has the teaching
profession been doing these last years as this tawdry orthodoxy has been
gaining ground?
Where has been the outcry to say, "Enough - this is
taking things too far?"
John Clare
23 November 2005
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/main.jhtml?xml=/education/2005/11/23/edsex23.xml&sSheet=/education/2005/11/23/ixtetop.html
