From 2019, children will be taught about healthy adult relationships from the age of four, and sex education will be compulsory in secondaries. But there are caveats. Schools will have flexibility in how they teach the subjects and can develop an approach that is “sensitive to the needs of the local community” – and, crucially, to religious beliefs. Parents are expected to retain the right to withdraw their children from lessons.
What details do children these days need to know? And how much freedom should headteachers have to decide?
Education worker, Brook sexual health charity, in Coleraine, Northern Ireland
Although sex education is already compulsory in Northern Ireland, our education system is run by religion, and lessons have to fall into line with the ethos of the school. Most of the time, the information young people have is completely wrong because they’re getting it either from each other or from pornography. One of the main things they ask about is things that they’ve heard about from porn – things such as fisting, or other sexual acts.
The worry is that young people believe everybody is doing these things and that it’s normal – when the truth is, it’s not. Things like fisting are physically damaging, and they’re not for pleasure. But pleasure is one of those things that people don’t like talking about because they don’t like to think that young people enjoy it, and that one of the main reasons we do have sex is because of pleasure.
Karl Young
Father of two boys, who blogs as the Yorkshire Dad, based in Harrogate
As children get older, I do think that, around the online stuff – people asking for photos and so on – I don’t really have much experience of that. I’m happy having a chat about it, but teachers are going to have all the right resources and they’ll probably be better than parents would be at offering advice.
Stephen Tierney
CEO, Blessed Edward Bamber Catholic multi-academy trust, Blackpool
For me, there would always be a desire to have a degree of flexibility within the teaching of SRE. Respect for others is crucial so it seems odd to insist all these elements are taught even where a particular community would say “that’s not our way”. I can’t think of a school that wouldn’t want to engage with the human relationships element of it, or with the sex education, in terms of the biological element to it, which is just part of science. There’s very little that as a Catholic school we’d say “we’re not comfortable with that”. We would teach about the different types of contraceptives, what the church’s perspective would be. We’ve been doing that for decades. [If we started giving information on how to access contraception] we would get into difficulties because our parents have expectations of how we will behave.
Sexologist, goodwill ambassador for sexual health and broadcaster best known for presenting Channel 4’s Sex in Class
I have seen biology books in the UK without the word clitoris in them. But you cannot talk about sex education without talking about the clitoris or without talking about masturbation. Young people need to know that they don’t need to be ashamed of masturbation – and that girls do it as well. It’s a good thing that SRE is going to be compulsory, but you need travelling teams of specialists that come to schools to train teachers and because it can’t just be a one-off lesson you need two or three teachers to continue this.
The other thing young people need preparation for is that sexual experiences come with stress, confusion and the huge emotions that come with the heat of the moment.
Jennifer Dhingra
Sexpression:UK, a student-led sex and relationships charity
Consent is a crucial topic because it can give young people the confidence to take control, and it provides protection against sexual exploitation. We get a lot of questions about gender identity and what the terms are. The main thing is that SRE is inclusive and comprehensive. It should reference people of a variety of sexual orientations, races, religions and cultures.
Assistant headteacher, Parkfield school, Birmingham
We need to talk about relationships and different families. Children need to know from a very early age that all families are different. Some have a mum and dad, some have just a mum or just a dad, some have two mums or two dads, some live with their nan, some live with foster parents. Work on LGBT issues has to be a whole-school initiative and not just in sex education.
Evelyn Greeves
Girlguiding advocate and student, Durham
The overall impression I had from sex education was that sex was something you should put off doing for as long as possible. But, if I was going to do it, I should make sure my boyfriend really loved me and that we used a condom. As a lesbian that wasn’t much use to me.
A lot of people assume that you can’t catch an STI through lesbian sex or gay sex, which obviously isn’t true. The use of things like dental dams, and condoms in sex between gay men often isn’t discussed, which is a really poor show.
Cindi Pride
Deputy headteacher, Stroud high school, Gloucestershire
One of the things that we’re working on is empowering young women to feel they can say no to requests for images, or anything that makes them feel uncomfortable. Girls are being bombarded with images sent from boys – very often completely unrequested – and they are being pressed to send images of themselves, which they clearly don’t want to do, but they come in for a lot of abuse and ridicule if they say no.
Sex education: what do today’s children really need to know?
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