Politicians from the Conservative Party, which four years ago made sex education compulsory, are complaining that children are being taught “age-inappropriate” material. In a letter sent to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, almost 50 MPs warned that students are “being taught about extreme and dangerous sex acts [and] encouraged to share intimate details about sexual desires with classmates and teachers.”
This came after an investigation by The Daily Telegraph shed light on classes in which young children are educated on masturbation, anal sex, and “100 genders.”
The political and journalistic uproar might be new, but the material itself is not. At the turn of this decade, Warwickshire County Council—led by Conservative Party politicians—reluctantly dropped a graphic sex education scheme, titled “All About Me” (the website for which has been removed, though I retain a printed copy of the text and supporting literature, which I previously reported on here) after parents fumed that, among other things, it encouraged masturbation. A year before, the Tory council had defended the scheme as containing “resources [which] are fully researched, evidence-based and in line with the Department for Education guidelines.” Only later did its members accept that their programme predated government guidance, suggesting such material would soon be deemed acceptable.
Some years even before this, shortly after then-Conservative Party leader David Cameron took the keys to Number 10 Downing Street, the Tory government appeared unconcerned that since it had attained power, the number of schoolgirls receiving contraceptive implants and injections had risen threefold. The Conservative health secretary of the time asked only that health professionals must “encourage a young person to talk to their parents about their sexual health.” Dr. Phillip Lee, another Tory MP, added that sex at a young age was fine, so long as teenage pregnancy rates did not increase as a result.
Following the latest complaints over sex education, Mr. Sunak has ordered a review of what children are being taught. He asked the Department for Education to “ensure that schools are not teaching inappropriate or contested content,” adding: “Our priority should always be the safety and wellbeing of children.”
The department is considering giving sex education classes age “ceilings” limiting what students can learn at certain ages, according to The Sunday Telegraph. One source told the paper that this could help to “make sure reliably that no one is being taught things that aren’t age appropriate.”
