CLASSROOM lessons about sex and relationships should be a routine part of the education of children as young as five so they can deal with today’s “increasingly sexualised society”, according to a government-commissioned report.

The unpublished study recommends an overhaul in the provision of sex education, which it concludes is currently ‘unfair, confused and damaging to pupils’ health and development’.

Compiled by the government’s independent advisory groups on teenage pregnancy and sexual health, the report proposes that ministers make personal, social and health education (PSHE) a statutory subject in all primary and secondary schools in England and Wales.

The sex and relationship education element of the subject would include much more in-depth discussion about sexual activity than the factual reproductive biology that pupils currently focus on in science lessons.

Lessons would include tuition on how sexually transmitted infections are passed on, how to deal with pressure from peers to have sex, and where to get contraception.

Dr Roger Ingham, a member of the teenage pregnancy advisory group, said it was important children were taught about relationships and being respectful to members of the opposite sex from as early an age as possible.

He added that sexual bullying was now common in primary playgrounds.

“We are not talking about teaching primary children about the sexual act, but about relationships with each other,” Ingham said. “Fifty years ago we might not have made the same recommendations but we have to respond to what young people are now exposed to.

“There’s no evidence from anywhere in the world that early sex education encourages children to have sex earlier.”

Secondary schools are required by law to provide sex education but parents can withdraw their children from lessons. Primary schools do not have to teach sex and reproduction, but they are required to have a policy that has been discussed with parents. Most primary schools, apart from Roman Catholic ones, do teach the basics of sex to their 10 and 11-year-olds.

Ingham, who is director of the Centre for Sexual Health Research at Southampton University, said the teenage pregnancy advisory group has been telling the government for three years that sex education should be introduced earlier.

Lady Gould, the Labour peer who chaired the combined inquiry by the advisory groups, said making PSHE a statutory subject in the national curriculum would help tackle the country’s teenage pregnancy rate — the highest in western Europe — the rising levels of sexually transmitted infections, and ignorance among young people about sex.

Gill Frances, who heads the Independent Advisory Group on Teenage Pregnancy, said sex and relationship education was crucial to helping youngsters understand such issues in an “increasingly sexualised society”.

Last night the Department for Education and Skills said it could not comment until it had seen the report.

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