Common Questions and Concerns
We have tried to consider the questions and concerns that you as a parent/carer are most likely to encounter when considering the new RSE curriculum and have prepared the following answers. If you have any further questions regarding relationship and sex education, please contact the school or complete our consultation survey, available on the school website.
1. My child will be taught sexually explicit language and shown pornographic images at far too young an age.
Pupils should have a common language in the formal classroom to describe genitals, not the colloquialisms often used, but the precise, scientific terms, free of embarrassment. This helps to safeguard students as it enables staff to teach using common understanding of the terms and areas of the body being referred to. This in turn enable students to gain understanding about safe and unsafe forms of touching and that certain parts of our body are private. This empowers pupils to explain unambiguously to a trusted adult if someone is touching them inappropriately.
The diagrams used in schools to teach sex education lessons, or lessons about the naming of body parts are never intended to stimulate sexual excitement but rather to teach pupils about their bodies and which parts are private. Real photographs are never used, but rather diagrams and factual terms.
2. My child is going to be in a lesson where gay relationships are being actively promoted.
As with all school provision, RSE lessons must be delivered in line with the requirements of the Equality Act and the Public Sector Equality Duty. Our schools’ values, in line with British values, espouse mutual tolerance and respect, promoting good relations between people of different protected characteristics, including sexual orientation. ‘Families can include, for example, single parent families, LGBT parents, families headed by grandparents, adoptive parents, foster parents/carers, amongst other structures.’ (DfE guidance). Removing all stigmatisation of children who come from different home circumstances is vitally important, and this is a key theme within the new curriculum.
3. My young child will be forced to attend sex education lessons in class and there is nothing I can do about that.
If parents/carers do not want their child to take part in some or all of the Sex Education lessons delivered at secondary level, they can request that they are withdrawn. The head teacher will consider this request, discuss it with them and will grant permission in all but exceptional circumstances, up until three school terms before the child turns 16. At this age, children can choose to receive Sex Education, if they would like to, and the school should arrange for the child to receive this teaching in one of those three terms (unless there are exceptional circumstances). Parents/carers are encouraged to discuss their decisions with staff at the earliest opportunity.
The school’s content and delivery of all parts of the RSE curriculum is designed to meet the needs of pupils at their age and stage in development. If a pupil is removed from sex education, there is always the risk that they may seek information from elsewhere, perhaps from friends or the internet, and that this advice may be incomplete or even misleading.
4. What is being taught to my child goes against my faith and the faith of my family.
Every school is advised to deliver the RSE content in a balanced and non-judgemental way, and in line with the school’s values, which include tolerance and mutual respect of other people’s beliefs, reflecting British values. The statutory guidance is clear: ‘The religious background of all pupils must be taken into account when planning teaching, so that topics are appropriately handled.’
5. Southfield is a girl’s school. My child is doesn’t need to know about boy’s puberty.
The DfE guidance states that teaching about puberty and menstruation should be covered and that ‘male and female pupils are prepared for changes they and their peers will experience.’ We believe it will help our students understand boys if they decide to enter a relationship and also understand changes to siblings at home.