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Primary Schools Forced To Give Sex Education To Pupils, Says Family Education Trust Survey

Primaries Forced To Teach Sex Education

First Posted: 26/09/11 13:01 BST Updated: 26/11/11 10:12 GMT

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Some primary schools are being forced by local authorities to teach sex education to their pupils, a report has claimed.

The research, published on Monday, raises concerns over the "considerable level of inconsistency" across the country. Many local authorities are incorrectly informing primary schools in their area they will not be eligible for the 'Healthy School' status if they did not teach sex education, it suggested.

The National Healthy Schools programme was introduced by Labour in 1999, but a survey of the 152 local authorities in England revealed inconsistency in the way its guidelines were being interpreted and applied in schools.

Education bodies are forcing schools to impose "liberal and permissive" teaching on pupils warned the Family Education Trust, who conducted the survey.

The trust believes the programme is being used as a "vehicle" to impose sex education on primary schools pupils. According to the report, titled 'Unhealthy Confusion', some authorities are taking an "overly prescriptive" approach and insisting on policies which are not required either by law or the healthy schools criteria to be taught in schools.

Family Education Trust director Norman Wells described the revelations as "very concerning".

"Primary schools that make a principled decision not to teach sex education after consultation with parents should not be stigmatised and denied a sought-after reward for that reason. There is nothing inherently 'unhealthy' about a primary school that decides not to teach sex education."

But the report also highlighted the refusal of some local authorities to adequately inform secondary school pupils about safe sex.

The report concluded there was "considerable confusion and ignorance" among local authorities about the extent to which condoms provide protection against sexually transmitted infections. Some authorities were described by the charity as being "unaware of the considerable limitations of condoms and vastly overstating their effectiveness".

The publication condemned the local authorities which considered it "inappropriate" to inform pupils of the limitations of condoms.

It concluded: "This policy runs the risk of placing some pupils at increased risk of contracting a sexually transmitted infection where they decide to embark on a sexual relationship on the basis of a false understanding they will be safe provided they use a condom."

Sarah, who attended a grammar school in Berkshire, told the Huffington Post UK her year received "barely any" advice on sex education.

"The boys and the girls were split into two classes and we were told if you didn't use a condom you could get pregnant, and that was when we were in Year 10. That was about it really. I found out about STIs from a rather embarrassing- but very necessary- talk from my parents. The issue definitely needs addressing."

Norman Wells added: "It is deeply disturbing to find so much confusion and ignorance about the extent to which condoms provide protection.

"It is ironic that in some local authority areas, the Healthy Schools Programme is undermining the healthiest messages of all", he added.

The report's release coincides with World Contraception Day, which takes place every year on September 26. Figures released by the International Planned Parenthood Federation showed the proportion of young people admitting to having had unprotected sex with a new partner has risen.

A study of British 16 to 19-year-olds has shown 43 per cent of those sexually active admitted to having sex with a new partner without using contraception compared to 36 per cent in 2009. And only 55 per cent of girls said they considered themselves to be "very well-informed" about all the contraceptive options available.

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Some primary schools are being forced by local authorities to teach sex education to their pupils, a report has claimed. The research, published on Monday, raises concerns over the "considerable le...
Some primary schools are being forced by local authorities to teach sex education to their pupils, a report has claimed. The research, published on Monday, raises concerns over the "considerable le...
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
Chris Burgess
George Bush. The Worst President Ever!
1478 Fans
 
02:21 AM on 09/27/2011
Excellent news. The more sex education is taught the better. The family trust will be a conservative organisation set up to impose their narrow values on the community.
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helioszephyr
What do you mean by "micro"?!
201 Fans
05:20 PM on 09/26/2011
"...decision not to teach sex education after consultation with parents..."

There in lies the problem... many parents are not well informed themselves and allow their own misconceptions and prejudices to guide our children's future health and social environment. The false assumption is that "parents" always know what's best when it comes to health issues... it's like assuming the role of a doctor to treat their child's deadly virus.
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HAlexandria
114 Fans
05:19 PM on 09/26/2011
Like I believe a word that comes out of that 1950esq institution(Family Education Trust). Members should be encouraged to migrate to one of the world's many theocratic states...or America. Ignorant losers.
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
Jacqueline Homan
author and freelance investigative journalist
552 Fans
 
04:17 AM on 09/27/2011
We in the states do NOT need anymore of Europe's "losers", we already have way too many of our own thank you very much! It was the exporting of Britain's losers to its colonized lands that created much of the world's problems we have today. Europe, and Britain in particular, need to deal with their own losers by quarantining them in an asylum rather than exporting them via colonization and making the rest of the world suffer.
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AlanDente
Noses: made to hold glasses
196 Fans
09:39 AM on 09/27/2011
Or maybe we could execute them by lethal injection when the evidence is totally flawed and the witnesses have mostly recanted?
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AlanDente
Noses: made to hold glasses
196 Fans
05:15 PM on 09/26/2011
Part 1 (please bear with me!)

This argument essentially boils down to the debate over who dictates the agenda of teaching in our schools. The reason why this is now more of an issue than ever is because the current Govt. is set on ceding more and more control over this to individual schools (via faith schools and academies).

I personally see this as a profoundly dangerous step down a road towards religious and cultural segregation, and inequity in education. Call me a socialist(!), but I happen to think that all pupils should be educated to the same levels, and get the same chance to succeed.

The Healthy Schools Programme was/is a scheme that required a minimal amount of SRE (Sex / relationships education) in order for a school to take part. Schools have to set a health priority (major focus) when they embark on acquiring HS status.

No school is forced to focus on SRE, and few do. Most schools (in my experience) focus on diet and exercise or emotional health and wellbeing. Although school priorities should be linked to school and local community needs, the reality is that schools can pretty much choose their priority, and the majority steer well clear of SRE as it is often a hot potato with some parents/teachers (you can guess why in the majority of cases).
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AlanDente
Noses: made to hold glasses
196 Fans
05:15 PM on 09/26/2011
part 2...

Schools with particular religious considerations and so forth are encouraged to work with Healthy Schools to come up with a scheme of education that is satisfactory to the Local Authority, without being offensive etc. to the cultural or religious sensitivities of parents, pupils and teachers.

Let me be clear- the Healthy Schools project bends over backwards to accommodate and include schools with 'difficulties' around the issue of SRE. This is, after all, the whole point (to engage schools and children who otherwise might not be very well informed about SRE issues). The HS programme employs specialist SRE staff because of these very issues! This is in stark contrast to the supposed heavy hand that HS takes over SRE matters, though it is possible that in a few isolated cases the kid gloves worn were not soft enough.

Whilst I cannot speak for Healthy Schools in every part of the country (who can?), I think it is always worth noting (and examining!!) who it is that brings a report such as this before the public. In this case, an organisation that claims to be 'free of political or religious influence' (hmm...) named the Family Education Trust.
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AlanDente
Noses: made to hold glasses
196 Fans
05:14 PM on 09/26/2011
part 3

Read more about this organisation: http://www.powerbase.info/index.php/Family_Education_Trust

Spokesman, Norman Wells, makes several contradictory statements. On the one hand, he doesn't like the fact that sex education is being (allegedly) forcibly promoted to Primary schools:

"The trust believes the programme is being used as a "vehicle" to impose sex education on primary schools pupils"

... But then he's concerned that there is confusion and ignorance about contraception!

"It is deeply disturbing to find so much confusion and ignorance about the extent to which condoms provide protection"

How about encouraging schools to allow the NHS and Local Authorities to do a proper job then, Norman? Or is it only a proper job if the advice given fits with the conservative, Christian-heavy agenda of your organisation, perhaps?

And here is the rub- this report is really about stifling the freedom of the individual. Someone shouldn't be having sex at the age of 14/15/16, because the Family Education Trust thinks its bad for society.

I believe that people should be allowed to make their own informed decisions. And refusing to teach SRE to Primary Pupils ultimately inhibits their ability to be informed. I question the wisdom of anyone who uncritically accepts the findings of a report commissioned by what is clearly an interest group masquerading under the guise of an impartial family-concern organisation!
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aletheia263
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12:58 PM on 09/27/2011
I've done some digging too and I'm not sure that AlanDente has understood the point being made about the confusion and ignorance about contraception. The Family Education Trust report - downloadable from their website - notes that some local authorities seem to think that condoms are 99 per cent effective at protecting against all sexually transmitted infections. Some other local authorities know that the level of protection is much lower than that for many infections - including common ones like HPV and chlamydia - but they want to keep children ignorant of that fact.

Surely this kind of ignorance - the ignorance of some local authorities, and the ignorance that other local authorities want to keep children in - should be a concern to us all, whatever our views of sex education. If sex education is to be taught, surely we can all agree that the information given should be accurate.

I think Norman Wells' point is that some local authorities are not doing a proper job - either because they are ignorant themselves or because they want to keep children in ignorance. I'm not sure that has anything to do with any religious or political agenda (in fact I didn't spot any religious or party political references in the report).

One other thing, 14 and 15 year-olds shouldn't be having sex in the UK for the simple reason that it's against the law - a law that was introduced for reasons of child protection.
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AlanDente
Noses: made to hold glasses
196 Fans
05:17 PM on 09/27/2011
I have read the report.

The vast majority of responses are 'individual schools can decide'. This inclusive, locally-driven policy is (apparently) not significant as the report doesn't choose to dwell upon it- even though, in schools which are populated by large populations of pupils with religious or cultural concerns over SRE, this essentially means that these opinions are taken into account to formulate a positive set of policies.

2 schools gave a poorly-informed response regarding the safety of condoms vs. STIs. To me, it looks like an honest mistake. Part of honest data analysis is being willing to interrogate anomalies. Whatever the case, the huge majority are well-informed.

'they want to keep children ignorant of that fact' - there is nothing I can see in the report, or the responses, that backs up this claim. Do you have any evidence for this, or is it just scaremongering?

"Norman Wells' point is that some local authoritie­s are not doing a proper job" - he did not investigate fully, he used what is clearly (in my opinion) a typo/content error, which in any case was a tiny percentage of total responses.

I've worked in FOI. I know the quantity that comes in. Errors are serious, but unavoidable. Norman Wells searched for an anomaly that backed up the sensationalist conclusion he reached before he began writing.
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AlanDente
Noses: made to hold glasses
196 Fans
05:20 PM on 09/27/2011
"(in fact I didn't spot any religious or party political references in the report)"

Yeah, they're getting careful at leaving that stuff out these days, aren't they?
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Valksy
civis mundi sum
1252 Fans
04:21 PM on 09/26/2011
Anyone else having trouble finding the credentials of the people who did the study? All I could really ascertain was that they had a massive agenda towards abstinence and the burying of one's head in the sand.

Ad let's be honest, no one is proposing teaching the kama sutra to primary school age kids, the education will have nothing to do with techniques. It is a squeamish nonsense and only breeds dysfunction and shame.

I'm 37 now and I never really received sex ed - everything I knew was peer to peer and it is a very bad idea to perpetuate that kind of ignorance. I didn't even understand my own body or the changes I would go through and, like many young girls, menstruation came as a bit of a shock thanks to the squeamishness of schools, my own parents and the people who write studies like this.

Proper education is key to tackling our teenage pregnancy rates and the rates of STI in the UK. Give age appropriate information throughout the school life of a child, give them the knowledge they need to make choices for themselves and empower them with the methods of how to be safe.
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AlanDente
Noses: made to hold glasses
196 Fans
05:17 PM on 09/26/2011
I did some digging ;)

See my (massive) rant above- I work for Healthy Schools... they got me going....!!
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Valksy
civis mundi sum
1252 Fans
05:34 PM on 09/26/2011
Read, fanned and favourited.

The people behind the study have a clear agenda of teaching abstinence and expecting sex to only occur in marriages. I would question any professional or academic credentials or peer review - if I could have found them. I see no evidence that they are qualified to offer advice, instructions or conclusions to anyone at all.
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Bryn-hill
7 Fans
02:13 PM on 09/26/2011
"Some primary schools are being forced by local authorities to teach sex education to their pupils, a report has claimed".

Good. All primary schools should teach sex education to their pupils. And wearing a condom is a lot better than not wearing a condom.
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BeeJayCeee
I still loathe Thatcher
144 Fans
02:06 PM on 09/26/2011
We have the worst rate of teenage pregnancy in Europe and one of the highest STD infection rates among teenagers. We're in desperate need of proper sex education in schools. We owe it to the children of those children, if no one else.
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botzarelli
32 Fans
 
12:43 PM on 09/26/2011
I don't really see how considering the provision of sex education to be a component to be taken into account in determining whether a school gets "healthy schools" status can in any way be seen to be "forcing" primary schools to teach sex education. It is very weak to complain that sex education is not a form of health education - there are many health impacts to sexual activity. Just because primary school children might be presumed not to be at that time engaging in much if any sexual activity doesn't mean that sex education does not contribute to their health education. If it did, there would be no justification for providing education about how bad for the health smoking is - after all, few if any primary school pupils will be smokers.

If the "badge" is worth more than a school governing body and parents' belief in the importance of not having sex education perhaps there would be some element of coercion. However, this would seem fanciful - there does not appear to be (from DfE site) any substantial additional funding flowing from getting the badge and I doubt, as a governor of a Primary School with Healthy Schools status, that it makes much difference to parents in evaluating and comparing schools.
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