School Gate: Who would want to teach sex education?

Sex education and lessons about the dangers of drugs and alcohol will become compulsory in primary and secondary schools under government plans to protect young people from pregnancy, sexually transmitted infections and substance abuse.

Jim Knight, the Schools Minister, said that making time in the national curriculum for these classes, as part of a new personal social and health education (PSHE) syllabus, would ensure that young people were better equipped “to navigate the complexities of modern life”.

He insisted, however, that very young children would not be given sexually explicit lessons. “We are not talking about five-year-olds being taught about sex . . . What we are talking about in Key Stage 1 [when children are aged 5 to 7] is children learning about themselves, their differences, their friendships, how to manage their feelings,” he said.

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Nobody is going to teach five-year-olds about having sex

Alexandra Frean

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Under the proposals, which are unlikely to come into force until 2010, children will learn to talk about peer pressure and their feelings, in sex and relationship education (SRE) lessons. They will learn the names of body parts and about animal reproduction.

Between 8 and 11 they will be taught about the biological aspects of sex. At secondary school, contraception and sexually transmitted infections (STIs) will be introduced as subjects.

At all stages there will be a heavy emphasis on teaching children how to manage and talk about personal relationships.

Mr Knight said that although many schools already did this perfectly well, others did not. Ofsted says provision is “patchy”, and a recent survey of 20,000 teenagers by the UK Youth Parliament found that sex education was so bad in some schools that many teenagers had no idea how to avoid STIs and pregnancy. Separate research suggests that most parents support sex education at school, often because they are not confident enough to take on that role at home.

The Government’s proposals were drawn up by a steering group including members of the UK Youth Parliament, sexual health organisations, faith groups and teachers.

Under the recommendations, accepted in full by the Government, faith schools will not be exempt from SRE classes. However, Mr Knight said that the lessons would be sufficiently flexible so that schools of any faith could teach the subject within the context of their own values.

The recommendations suggest that specialist teachers be brought in to deliver PSHE lessons, and more information on SRE should be provided for parents.

Details of the PSHE curriculum will be the subject of a review headed by Sir Alasdair Macdonald, head teacher of Morpeth secondary school in Tower Hamlets, East London. He will also consider whether parents should have the option to withdraw their children from SRE lessons, although it seems highly unlikely, that, having come this far, the Government would agree to that.

A separate review of drug and alcohol education recommends that children aged 5 could learn about dangerous substances in the home, such as bleach or painkillers. As they get older they will learn about the risks of Class A drugs.

Sexual health campaigners maintain that the poor quality of sex education in schools is contributing to the country’s sexual health problems. Diagnoses of STIs are rising and England has the highest levels of teenage pregnancy in Europe, with 39,000 girls under the age of 18 becoming pregnant every year. It is thought that a third of young people become sexually active before they reach the age of 16.

But Norman Wells, of the Family Education Trust, said that making SRE compulsory in schools would undermine the role of parents in upholding family values.

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