Nick Fletcher is the Conservative MP for Don Valley.
After extensive lobbying by thousands of parents, the Government has agreed to undertake an independent review into the provision of Relationship, Sex, and Health Education (RSHE) in schools. A panel of experts has been chosen to participate and terms of reference announced.
While much of the momentum for this review came from groups concerned about the promotion of gender ideology to school children, we should take this opportunity to stand back and take a wider look at what is being expected of schools in this area.
Because, increasingly, schools are being asked to take over the cultural and moral education of our children. The most recent foray is Sir Kier Starmer’s pledge that boys should be given lessons on how to respect women and girls.
We must think of the review in this light – it matters; we need to get it right. This extended remit for our schools is something we should think seriously about. It would, perhaps, be well and good if two criteria could be met.
First, that there is widespread parental agreement about the cultural and moral values that should be taught to children in schools. Second, that guidance given to schools, and its application, reflects that agreement. (I leave aside the issue of effectiveness.)
I would argue that neither of these criteria is being met. Perhaps in a pluralistic society the former can never be met, unless in a very stripped back form.
The question is therefore, what should we do?
It was in 2017 that Justine Greening, then Education Secretary, decided to put RSHE on a compulsory footing. The Department for Education (DfE) issued detailed guidance and the new curriculum went live for summer 2021.
The guidance is worth reading – and a case study in how a centralised bureaucratic approach to issues of this nature can go so badly wrong.
At face value there is little that reasonable-minded adults from all faiths and political persuasions should find objectionable.
The devil is in a few details. For example, most people would probably be surprised to learn that the DfE required pupils to be “taught the facts and the law about… gender identity”.
But the concept of gender identity has no basis in facts; you won’t find it in law. It is made-up, emanating from queer theory, based on sexist stereotypes: if a boy likes supposedly girly things perhaps he is a girl, and vice versa.
No wonder schools ended up, in confusion and haste, reaching out to the very third-party providers who had geared up to teach children this unscientific ideology. (Stonewall teaches primary school children that “everyone has a gender identity”.)
The RSHE guidance surely cannot be unconnected to the catastrophic rise in the number of young people confused about their identities.
A vulnerable few, growing in number, become convinced they need to take cross-sex hormones and undergo surgeries which can render them sterilised, medical patients for life, and entail unknown other complications too. It is the medical scandal of our age.
A second problem is that the RSHE guidance contained no boundaries around what should be taught. Thus, Jigsaw produced resources teaching primary children about masturbation; Split Banana created “pleasure and masturbation” workshops.
No wonder parents were furious. Yet they were powerless, some were even refused sight of the materials being taught to their children.
Yet even as this endeavour has gone so badly wrong, calls continue for schools to take an ever greater role in cultural and moral education.
Online porn has the capacity to do enormous damage to our children. Social media is fuelling an array of issues that teenagers are at the forefront of navigating. There is certainly a role for schools.
But there is also a need for more collective engagement from parents.
We need to talk; nobody has all the answers. So what do we do now? What should come from the latest review?
We need proper engagement from both parents and schools. This issue cannot be solved by centralised bureaucratic guidance, nor outsourced to third-party providers with downloadable slides, money to make, and an agenda to push.
First, there must be an unambiguous right for parents to view and be consulted on all RSHE material.
This right needs teeth – why engage if you are powerless? So parents must also be given the right to withdraw their children from RSHE lessons.
The goal would be few withdrawals. The intention would be that schools think much more carefully about their RSHE plans. Faced with explaining to a parent that their child has an inner gender identity, a school might abandon the provider promoting such nonsense. The “masturbation flashcards” might also be shelved.
An approach to discussing online porn should likewise be run past parents – there isn’t a tried and tested right answer. A report by Civitas says two thirds of parents want this right, so a popular win for the Government.
We have entered an era where divisive ideologies, spread and amplified by social media, hold powerful sway. Our children are in the eye of the storm. Adults cannot leave them to it: we must engage.
It is not possible to dictate a single central bureaucratic formula for our children’s cultural and moral education. As we are currently witnessing, this is prone to ideological capture, has the capacity to harm.
Allowing parents to withdraw their children from RSHE is an essential safety valve. It is the tool we need to fundamentally recommit and re-incentivise parents and schools to properly engage in one of the most important conversations for our children and our times.
Nick Fletcher is the Conservative MP for Don Valley.
After extensive lobbying by thousands of parents, the Government has agreed to undertake an independent review into the provision of Relationship, Sex, and Health Education (RSHE) in schools. A panel of experts has been chosen to participate and terms of reference announced.
While much of the momentum for this review came from groups concerned about the promotion of gender ideology to school children, we should take this opportunity to stand back and take a wider look at what is being expected of schools in this area.
Because, increasingly, schools are being asked to take over the cultural and moral education of our children. The most recent foray is Sir Kier Starmer’s pledge that boys should be given lessons on how to respect women and girls.
We must think of the review in this light – it matters; we need to get it right. This extended remit for our schools is something we should think seriously about. It would, perhaps, be well and good if two criteria could be met.
First, that there is widespread parental agreement about the cultural and moral values that should be taught to children in schools. Second, that guidance given to schools, and its application, reflects that agreement. (I leave aside the issue of effectiveness.)
I would argue that neither of these criteria is being met. Perhaps in a pluralistic society the former can never be met, unless in a very stripped back form.
The question is therefore, what should we do?
It was in 2017 that Justine Greening, then Education Secretary, decided to put RSHE on a compulsory footing. The Department for Education (DfE) issued detailed guidance and the new curriculum went live for summer 2021.
The guidance is worth reading – and a case study in how a centralised bureaucratic approach to issues of this nature can go so badly wrong.
At face value there is little that reasonable-minded adults from all faiths and political persuasions should find objectionable.
The devil is in a few details. For example, most people would probably be surprised to learn that the DfE required pupils to be “taught the facts and the law about… gender identity”.
But the concept of gender identity has no basis in facts; you won’t find it in law. It is made-up, emanating from queer theory, based on sexist stereotypes: if a boy likes supposedly girly things perhaps he is a girl, and vice versa.
No wonder schools ended up, in confusion and haste, reaching out to the very third-party providers who had geared up to teach children this unscientific ideology. (Stonewall teaches primary school children that “everyone has a gender identity”.)
The RSHE guidance surely cannot be unconnected to the catastrophic rise in the number of young people confused about their identities.
A vulnerable few, growing in number, become convinced they need to take cross-sex hormones and undergo surgeries which can render them sterilised, medical patients for life, and entail unknown other complications too. It is the medical scandal of our age.
A second problem is that the RSHE guidance contained no boundaries around what should be taught. Thus, Jigsaw produced resources teaching primary children about masturbation; Split Banana created “pleasure and masturbation” workshops.
No wonder parents were furious. Yet they were powerless, some were even refused sight of the materials being taught to their children.
Yet even as this endeavour has gone so badly wrong, calls continue for schools to take an ever greater role in cultural and moral education.
Online porn has the capacity to do enormous damage to our children. Social media is fuelling an array of issues that teenagers are at the forefront of navigating. There is certainly a role for schools.
But there is also a need for more collective engagement from parents.
We need to talk; nobody has all the answers. So what do we do now? What should come from the latest review?
We need proper engagement from both parents and schools. This issue cannot be solved by centralised bureaucratic guidance, nor outsourced to third-party providers with downloadable slides, money to make, and an agenda to push.
First, there must be an unambiguous right for parents to view and be consulted on all RSHE material.
This right needs teeth – why engage if you are powerless? So parents must also be given the right to withdraw their children from RSHE lessons.
The goal would be few withdrawals. The intention would be that schools think much more carefully about their RSHE plans. Faced with explaining to a parent that their child has an inner gender identity, a school might abandon the provider promoting such nonsense. The “masturbation flashcards” might also be shelved.
An approach to discussing online porn should likewise be run past parents – there isn’t a tried and tested right answer. A report by Civitas says two thirds of parents want this right, so a popular win for the Government.
We have entered an era where divisive ideologies, spread and amplified by social media, hold powerful sway. Our children are in the eye of the storm. Adults cannot leave them to it: we must engage.
It is not possible to dictate a single central bureaucratic formula for our children’s cultural and moral education. As we are currently witnessing, this is prone to ideological capture, has the capacity to harm.
Allowing parents to withdraw their children from RSHE is an essential safety valve. It is the tool we need to fundamentally recommit and re-incentivise parents and schools to properly engage in one of the most important conversations for our children and our times.