Relationships and sex education (RSE) in schools should be given the same status, training and funding as other specialist subjects, an expert has told MPs.
Giving evidence to the Commons Women and Equalities Select Committee this afternoon, Lucy Emmerson, chief executive of the Sex Education Forum, called for more investment and resources to give RSE the same status as other specialist subjects - and the same dedicated teaching time.
Today’s special hearing was organised by the committee after the prime minister ordered an acceleration of a review of RSE statutory guidance in March, in response to reports that inappropriate material was being taught in some schools.
Rishi Sunak ordered the review to be rushed forward after MP Miriam Cates presented a dossier to Parliament in which she claimed that external providers of RSE lessons were giving young people “graphic lessons on oral sex, how to choke your partner safely and 72 genders”.
The Department for Education said the review was needed to make sure that all children are protected from inappropriate content in all cases, even if many schools already teach RSE and engage parents in a positive way.
Also giving evidence today, Tanya Carter, spokesperson for Safe Schools Alliance UK, Lucy Marsh, communications officer at the Family Education Trust, and Lottie Moore, head of Biology Matters at the Policy Exchange think tank, called for a public inquiry into how RSE is being taught, arguing that flaws in the system were creating safeguarding and equality issues.
Calls for investment in sex education
Ms Carter said she did not think RSE teaching was currently providing accurate, legal biological information - which she said it should be doing as part of its duty of safeguarding.
But the committee also heard evidence from academics who refuted these claims. Jonathan Baggaley, chief executive of the PSHE Association, said: “There are some problematic materials that do exist, but I don’t recognise a widespread landscape of poor practice.
“That problematic material can be tackled by teachers having proper training.”
Earlier this week, the children’s commissioner also called for more specialist, trained RSE teachers as part of a report into the link between pupils’ exposure to pornography and harmful sexual behaviour.
Ms Emmerson said this would require funding, leadership, good communication from the government and “investing in a staff cohort and creating stability for that cohort”.
She also called on Ofsted to comment where it found good practice in RSE lessons in schools.
Ms Emmerson added that the review team should not react to “sensationalist examples” of what was being taught that were “out of context and misleading”.
Dr Sophie King-Hill, senior fellow in health services management at the University of Birmingham, told the committee that when she read the “Cates dossier”, her “heart sank”. She described it as “very misleading”, “emotive”, “scaremongering” and “poorly written”.
Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s File on Four programme on the subject of RSE teaching on Tuesday, Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, called for the DfE to provide a list of quality-assured external providers of RSE lessons.
Ms Emmerson told the committee that where RSE was being taught by external providers, schools could be reassured that the curriculum they were delivering was appropriate and evidence-based by referring to a free Sex Education Forum checklist.
