Compulsory sex education in primary schools is misplaced, eroding moral standards and encouraging sexual experimentation, a group of hundreds of head teachers, school governors and faith leaders said on 28 March 2010.
In a letter to The Sunday Telegraph, 640 signatories, including university professors, head-teachers, councillors, doctors, bishops, and parish priests call for the provisions on sex education in the upcoming Children, Schools and Families Bill to be dropped. The provisions will force children as young as seven to be taught about sex and relationships.
The letter says that the bill seeks to impose a ‘particular ideology’ and undermine parents’ rights to bring up their children in accordance with their own values and culture. It reads:
‘Parents and guardians have the primary responsibility for bringing up their children in accordance with their own values and culture. They may entrust the task of formal education to a school of their choice, but the overall responsibility for the upbringing of their children remains theirs.
‘The Children, Schools and Families Bill undermines this principle and seeks to impose a particular ideology by means of statutory sex and relationships education from the age of 5 (which primary schools do not currently have to teach). We would therefore urge Parliament decisively to oppose it.
‘A state which seeks to centralise responsibilities which are properly fulfilled by families is acting in an unjust manner and undermines the basis of a free society.’
The bill, which is currently going through a committee stage in the House of Lords, will introduce compulsory sex education for children from the age of seven.
It will also remove the rights of parents to ‘opt out’ and withdraw their children from lessons once their children have reached the age of 15.
Under the bill, school children in England will have to ‘learn the nature of civil partnership and the importance of strong and stable relationships’ instead of learning about the central importance of marriage.
Principles established by the bill are likely to tie the hands of religious schools and force them to cover topics such as access to abortion and homosexuality, even though they will be allowed some freedom as to the way in which the topics are taught.
Instead of Governors setting the content of the curriculum, it will be outlined by the Minister for Education and his advisers. The role of governing bodies will be reduced to determining the school’s approach to the subjects covered in SRE in consultation with parents. Schools will be required to ‘promote equality’ (that is, to promote the idea that homosexual practice is equal to heterosexual practice).
They will also be required to expose children to a range of viewpoints on sex and relationships in addition to the one that their ethos supports.
(See the CCFON report and Action Pack)
Norman Wells, Director of Family Education Trust and a lead signatory, said:
‘There is widespread disquiet among head teachers, school governors and faith leaders about moves to reduce the influence of parents over what is taught in such a sensitive area. The Government frequently repeats its mantra that ‘parents bring up children in this country, not the government and not schools’.
‘Yet increasingly parents find themselves sidelined and effectively told they must bring up their children by Government diktat. It is time to stand up to the encroachment of an overbearing state and say enough is enough.
‘The Bill is music to the ears of those who have long campaigned for compulsory sex education to advance their agenda to break down traditional moral standards, redefine the family, promote relativism, celebrate homosexuality, and encourage sexual experimentation.’
In his recent booklet Too Much, Too Soon, Mr Wells says that ‘it is vital that schools remain accountable to parents for the sex education they provide and that parents are fully involved in the development of the school’s policy’.
‘Where parents are unable to reach agreement with the school with regard to the delivery of sex education, it is important that they retain the right to withdraw their children from classes,’ he adds.
The official consultation on the proposals to the bill, carried out by the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority and published in September last year, only 32 per cent agreed that personal, social and health education, of which sex education is part, should be compulsory.
Tony Butterick, the head of Holy Trinity, a church primary, in Woking, Surrey, said:
‘Children need a childhood. I believe that we are losing opportunities for protecting the age of innocence. In many schools we manage to retain it but the Government are now dictating the extent to which we can do that.
‘They are trying to solve the ills of society through education. But children are at school to learn and have a positive outlook on life. It concerns me that at primary level we should be talking to children about sexuality. Joe Public actually wants children to have a conservative sex education programme,’ Mr Butterick added.