Written Evidence submitted by Pippa Smith
Introduction:
I am making my submission as a parent and new grandparent. I am deeply concerned about the way sex education is taught in schools and have taken an interest in the subject for over ten years beginning when my children were growing up.
Whether PSHE ought to be statutory, either as part of the National Curriculum or through some other means of entitlement.
I do not believe that PSHE and SRE should be statutory, either as part of the National Curriculum or through some other means of entitlement. Sex education should not be compulsory and parents should always have the final say over what their children are taught; they should also be able to withdraw their children if they wish and they need to be aware of their rights on this. The outcome of the Report of the DfE consultation on PSHE in March 2013 showed clearly that parents are concerned and do not want compulsory sex education. I strongly support the view of the parents who responded to that consultation.
Whether the current accountability system is sufficient to ensure that schools focus on PSHE.
It is my belief that schools must always be accountable to, and work with, parents with reference to SRE.
The overall provision of Sex and Relationships Education in schools and the quality of its teaching, including in primary schools and academies.
1. I have for some time been concerned about the often explicit nature of some of the content of sex education teaching. For example the Channel 4 resource, ‘Living and Growing’, which takes the form of an animated cartoon and portrays sexual intercourse, ejaculation and references to masturbation. This is simply inappropriate for primary age children and is more likely to put ideas into their heads and robs them of their innocence.
The BBC was heavily criticised in Parliament in 2012 for its explicit film showing a computer-generated couple having sex and was forced to modify it.
It is hard to understand how anyone can consider that material suitable for 9 year olds and show it in school. This is a very good example of why parents should always have the right to say no to sex education. Most parents would not expect material to be so explicit and it is therefore vital they are involved fully in any decisions about the content of the sex ed being considered.
2. Anecdotal - I have a cousin whose daughter, at the age of 13 (about 3 years ago) came home from school in a disturbed state and wouldn’t say what had upset her. It was only on enquiring from another parent that she discovered what her daughter was too ashamed to tell her, that her class had learned how to put a condom on to a prosthetic penis using their mouths.
3. It needs to be considered also that occasionally parents can be persuaded by the ‘experts’ that some methods they would not normally do themselves, should be allowed (I am thinking about the BBC Three programme, Porn: What’s the Harm, on 14 April 2014 in which 5 year olds were being taught about the names of the private parts of their body. They have an innate modesty and this puts ideas in their heads and erodes that key to self-preservation, natural modesty).
4. BBFC Classification. I cautiously welcome explicit videos at least being subject to BBFC classification. However I am not content with the BBFC being prepared to allow a level of nudity in an ‘educational context’, for example, which it might not in a different context, so this may not be as effective as it should be. For too long ‘education’ and ‘art’ have been used as excuses to push the boundaries and the BBFC’s track record is far from satisfactory. At the end of the day parents make the best censors for their own children if they are aware.
5. More Government support for resources and awareness for parents and carers would be particularly helpful, thus enabling them to make the best decisions for their own children.
I say this because some of those charities advising the Government about sex education do so in terms of giving children information, contraceptives even abortion advice and saying it is their ‘choice’ to be sexually active when they ‘feel ready’. The word ‘moral’ is not used and advice by, for example, Brook, Sex Education Forum et al, says ‘sex is a normal and pleasurable fact of life’. One can’t dispute that, however school children need to be taught about sex education within a clear moral framework to include sex within marriage, chastity and fidelity, and the advice they provide is lacking all these. Indeed, parents’ role is not given the emphasis it should be.
6. Giving information and condoms to children, who do not have the cognitive, emotional or physical development to make good choices and who may have attachment problems, who are no doubt watching all sorts of sexual activity in the media and who might be intoxicated when they decide to ‘have sex’, is simply not the answer. How many are told that condoms do not protect against all sexually transmitted infections? How many are told about the physiological dangers of anal sex which many girls are now being expected to perform by their boyfriends.
7. The messages they are receiving currently both from the sexually charged media and some of the sex education they receive, reinforce the idea that teen sex, even under age sex, and promiscuity is OK and normal. As well as actual lessons in school which can be explicit, children can learn highly sexualised messages from Channel 4 programmes such as The Joy of Teen Sex and the Sex Education Show, or BBC Three’s Sex Season, which would make their parents’ hair stand on end.
8. Parents' role has been severely undermined in recent years by so-called experts. According to the Department for Education report, over half of parents 'want sex education to promote the value of abstinence alongside contraception; to be taught in its "moral context" with an emphasis on marriage; and the importance of the legal age of consent' [Daily Telegraph 3 March 2013].
Parents are generally the best judge of what is right for their children but they need help and empowerment.
Children know far more and at earlier ages and parents are left with little confidence to instil their own wisdom. Indeed it becomes too easy for parents to leave the rather thorny issue of sex education to schools. They need to be encouraged to talk to their children and they need to know all the facts about sexually transmitted diseases, abortion etc including the latest figures. They need to know about online dangers including pornography, sexting, predation etc.
9. Despite 30 or so years of increasing sex education, we have not witnessed a reduction in sexual activity but rather the reverse, including the exponential increase in sexually transmitted disease and abortion with UK still high on teen pregnancy.
It is useful to look at this in a historic sense.
a) My own experiences, having lived through this sexual revolution:
Having reached the age of 16 towards the end of the ‘swinging sixties’ I can well remember the huge changes that came with the easy availability of the contraceptive pill. At the age of 16 (a fatherless girl as my father had died young) it was easier to decide to become sexually active because I could go to a doctor who was not my own doctor and be prescribed the pill.
At the age of 15 being sexually active was not an option as people respected the law that made underage sex illegal so it was unthinkable to ‘go the whole way’.
At the age of 14 I, and most of my peer group, had little idea of sexuality beyond kissing and cuddling.
b) In terms of sex education, in the 1970's Schools Broadcasting Council of the BBC beamed a series of sex education programmes to schools across the nation. These powerful and visual programmes, delivered with the full authority of the BBC, set the tone for sex education in the UK. The explicit nature of the Merry-go-round series of films was highly controversial at the time.
In 2007 there were 2 programmes about AIDS presented by Stephen Fry. He advocated an HIV awareness video from the BBC designed with the help of the Terrence Higgins Trust - GI Jonny [newspaper report Metro 10 Oct 2007: BBC’s risqué safe sex video ‘beyond a joke’]
Whether recent Government steps to supplement the guidance on teaching about sex and relationships, including consent, abuse between teenagers and cyber-bullying, are adequate.
1. The supplementary guidance being produced by the Sex Education Forum is not always appropriate and while I agree that SRE needs to be good quality, it should also be driven by values of right and wrong with clear boundaries.
On the subject of consent for example, certainly children should learn to say ‘no’ but the idea of children negotiating about ‘having sex’ suggests it is OK and normal for children to be sexually active.
2. Asking children and teens about what they would like to be taught is all right up to a point and it is important to understand their concerns and views. However they do not have the maturity or life experiences to know what should and shouldn’t be taught. Schools should listen of course, but make wise decisions for them, always with parental input.
3. Their experiences and concerns online regarding cyber bullying, pornography etc are very important and need to be taken seriously and addressed by adults such as parents, carers, teachers and Parliamentarians. To know what is happening to them, how it is affecting them is vital in order to address the problems and give them the protection they urgently need.
4. Pornography on the Syllabus
I am worried about the scale of children's access to pornography on the internet and the real harm this is causing them. However the guidance for teachers from the Sex Education Forum in 2013 was deeply disturbing as teachers were encouraged to tell pupils in sex education lessons that porn is 'not all bad', is 'hugely diverse', and to talk about all aspects of porn.
All pornography is bad and much of mainstream online pornography is now violent, abusive and degrading. It is about sexual exploitation by ruthless corporate interest. Viewing pornography creates sexual desire divorced from relationship, which is the intention of the pornographers and distributors who, it's estimated, are making around $100billion a year globally. Softcore pornography is a gateway to hardcore pornography and, worse, to child sexual abuse images. Pornography also feeds prostitution and sex trafficking [Robert W Peters, Laura J. Lederer, and Shane Kelly: The Slave and the Porn Star: Sexual Trafficking and Pornography]
Not only will children be exposed to discussion about 'all aspects of porn' but teachers will be expected to 'speak frankly and confidently' about pornography, and they will be directed to online resources such as TheSite.org which tells teens 'if you can separate the fantasy from reality you are are likely to enjoy both’, or BISH which will not tell them if porn is good or bad, right or wrong and even promotes the game Planet Porn and helps them create ‘ethical’ porn.
While the SRE Advice says teachers will not have to view pornography to teach it, they will need to have a knowledge of 'all aspects' of pornography in order to be able to discuss them with children. This is a frighteningly dangerous situation because not only are children harmed by pornography but so are adults.
Discussions in the classroom about pornography will not stop children watching pornography if they can. Ever more explicit sex education and the distribution of contraception (often without parents' knowledge), have not prevented growing levels of promiscuity at younger ages with the attendant huge increase in STIs. Children are naturally curious about nudity and sex but do not have the cognitive ability to deal with what pornography means. This has contributed to the trend for sexting - the sending of graphic, intimate images between children as young as 10 - which they see nothing wrong in, sometimes with tragic consequences when girls discover their pictures have been posted online for all to see. Yet on the website. TheSite.org, there is a section on ‘safe sexting and safe webcam sex’!
How the effectiveness of SRE should be measured.
A reduction in under age sexual behaviour and STIs etc would be a good start.
Parents should be consulted about their views on how well they have been involved and the materials being used, and any observations they have of their children’s behaviour.
Recommendations
1. First and foremost, SRE is a highly sensitive area and needs to be fully agreed by parents who should be given all the information they need.
2. Children should not be given contraception confidentially or advised about abortion without parents’ knowledge. This is just wrong and undermines parental legal responsibility and ability to parent.
3. Sex education should be warning parents and children about the harms of pornography and giving them the sort of information which will help them to understand the dangers of even taking one look. Parents in particular need to understand that online pornography is degrading, exploitative and abusive and that their children are probably viewing it.
4. I recommend the following two videos for Parliamentarians, parents, carers, teachers and older children. These are factual without being titillating. The first was published following a Summit which took place in Washington DC last month (May 2014) entitled ‘The Coalition to End Sexual Exploitation’:
The second is from TEDX Glasgow – The Great Porn Experiment:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSF82AwSDiU
June 2014