The Accord Coalition has written to the Department for Education to express its concern at the cursory provision of sex education in the government’s new draft primary science curriculum. The draft curriculum was published in June and comes at a time when sex education has come under increasing attack from those wanting to delay when information surrounding how human reproduction occurs is presented in schools, and those who want schools to advocate abstinence.
Last week Channel 4 worryingly withdrew a resource that it had made available over the last ten years, which supported the teaching of Sex and Relationships Education (SRE) in primary schools, so as to ensure that their products reflected the government’s ‘current policy’. This was despite the fact that SRE is still currently being reviewed as part of the government’s ongoing review into the Personal, Social, Health and Economic Education. Meanwhile in January, Nadine Dorries MP tabled, though later withdrew a Private Members’ Bill, which called for schools to teach girls aged 13 to 16 the ‘benefits of abstinence from sexual activity’.
Chair of the Accord Coalition, Rabbi Dr Jonathan Romain MBE, said ‘Accord believes the development of education about sex and relationships in schools should be lead by what will achieve the best outcomes for pupils and that the opinions of experts should be heeded. Sadly however the development of high quality and thorough sex education in schools is being frustrated by a small, but vocal and ideologically driven lobby, whose opinions lack firm evidence.
‘Many schools provide Sex and Relationships Education (SRE), but do so only voluntarily. The sex education element of the National Curriculum for Science is the only sex education that schools have to offer, and thus that some pupils will ever receive, so has added importance.
‘Accord is very concerned about the standing of sex education in the current climate, and we have therefore written to the Department for Education, urging that those parts of the science curriculum relating to sex education are made more thorough. This is to try and ensure that teachers are given greater confidence in dealing with the mechanisms by which fertilisation takes place and in talking about those parts of the human body involved in reproduction’.
