Every week, one of our reporters will take a look at one of their specialist topics and offer their unique insight. This week, Caroline Henshaw examines the new guidelines on compulsory relationships and sex education, and the issue of when schools will be able to overrule parents’ wishes
On Monday, the Department for Education released its long-awaited guidance on how schools should teach teenagers about sex.
News that pupils will now be taught about periods, female genital mutilation, safety online and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender relationships sparked a flurry of excited headlines.
But one issue is still up in the air: when, and how, should parents be able to withdraw their children from these nominally compulsory lessons?
The new guidance says parents can choose to opt their child out of relationships and sex education (RSE) up to age 15, and - “except in exceptional circumstances” - the school should let them.
Pressed repeatedly to explain what those “circumstances” might be, education secretary Damian Hinds resorted to some debating-club sophistry, claiming that was impossible as “by definition, they are exceptional”. “There is a balance to be struck here and I think we have struck it,” he told Parliament. Others disagreed. Fellow Tory MP Sir Edward Leigh described the move as “a fundamental shift of power to the state” that went against Conservative values.
Matthew Offord, Tory MP for Hendon, pointed to “huge amounts of concern” in his constituency about the possibility of schools teaching RSE to young people against their parents’ wishes, saying: “The last time I looked, the Conservative Party believed in freedom of choice.”
This question strikes at the heart of the UK’s unease when it comes to young people having sex.
We know they are having it. We have the highest rate of teen pregnancies in Western Europe. We know they are talking about it. Numerous studies tell us of the sexual harassment pupils face on a daily basis, both at school and online.
Yet the idea of teaching young people in the classroom how to navigate sex and relationships remains morally fraught.
By leaving the question of when schools should be allowed to go against parents’ wishes so open to interpretation, the DfE has, in effect, made them the gatekeepers of social values.
The new guidelines are a big step forward, but the onus will still be on teachers to make them work.
Caroline Henshaw is a Tes reporter
