Students terf out in class, teacher haplessly tries to argue, then tells them they don't belong in this school

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[–]ClassroomPast6178 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

That being said, the Daily Mail has found some worrying schemes of work that have apparently been adopted at a few schools because the government botched the introduction of mandatory sex and relationships education (something they’re now frantically trying to fix).

It looks like the alphabet freaks have quickly moved to fill the gap in the national curriculum with their borderline pornographic nonsense.

I’ve never seen these materials at any of the schools I’ve worked at, but I can believe that some schools, after receiving bad advice from outside groups (like Stonewall) might have gone ahead and used the materials - especially if they were offered free or at low cost (good schemes of work can be really expensive, my last school brought in a new Maths SoW and spent over £10k buying all the books and course materials).

[–]ageingrockstar 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

As a non-parent and non-teacher I have an idea on how these classes could work (but maybe you could disabuse me if it's an impractical idea).

At parent teacher night, the teacher presents a schedule of these classes and what will be taught in each one. Maybe even a copy of the materials used in each class too. There's a check box against each class and the parent is asked to tick the box for each class that they want their child to attend. (If the parent doesn't attend the P-T night then the schedule is emailed out to the parent.)

Then each class taught is kept close to the outline of what was on the schedule, with the child/student having a copy so they can tell their parents if it deviated too much.

Obviously there's a logistics issue with students who haven't had the check-box ticked for that class having to be provided with some other activity. But that shouldn't be too much of an issue if you're only running a few classes each year (can't see this topic needing more than 1 to 4 classes a year; from memory I had only 2 or 3 classes on this subject over the entire period of my schooling).

[–]ClassroomPast6178 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

That’s how we used to do it and all the religious parents withdrew their children. The problem with that being that you now had screaming nine and ten year old girls getting their first periods in school and thinking they’re dying (I’ve not encountered that but colleagues have told me enough stories). You also have various other issues regarding inappropriate behaviour by children because they don’t understand these new feeling they’ve got.

To address all that the government agreed to make RSE mandatory (and then botched it).

I agree with you that the parents should see all the materials and outlines of the lessons so that they aren’t surprised by anything, but I don’t think allowing withdrawals works any more especially with children having internet access.

There is also stuff like FGM, honour killing and forced marriage in some cultures, the ones that withdraw their children from RSE lessons.

So I’m 99.99% behind mandatory fact-based biological sex education and relationships education with a safe-guarding emphasis.

The other 0.01% of me supports saying fuck it, remove it entirely, let the parents handle it and let the chips fall where they may. But we know for a fact that that will result in increased teen pregnancy, and almost certainly decreased child safeguarding. The only reason I’m at 0.01% on this is that I think schools are burdened with too much that should be the responsibility of parents and if parents took some responsibility for their children we wouldn’t have to step in (healthy eating, fighting childhood obesity, mental health and well-being are the big ones I am tired of being responsible for).

[–]ageingrockstar 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Appreciate the thoughtful response, thanks.

To start at the end, I very much agree with your sentiment here, and you have my sympathy as a teacher :

I think schools are burdened with too much that should be the responsibility of parents and if parents took some responsibility for their children we wouldn’t have to step in (healthy eating, fighting childhood obesity, mental health and well-being are the big ones I am tired of being responsible for).

Regarding your 99.99% score, my own score would probably be more like 33.33% (some support for it being mandatory, but still leaning the other way). I certainly perceive issues with parents being the sole arbiter of what their children are taught, so that's why it's 33% but I guess I'm also pretty dubious about 'the state' forcing instruction on children too, in areas where ideology can creep in. I guess my compromise would be that the children have to be given a copy of the schedule for the classes after their parents have completed it, so that they are at least informed of what their parents are not allowing them to be taught.

[–]ClassroomPast6178 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

If the government had done what it has done in every other subject and specified exactly what was to be taught, there would be very little issue because 1. All kids would get the same 2. There would be no room for activists to insert their shit and 3. It’d be the most mild version possible because it would have to be acceptable to everyone.

The trouble is that the government left a gap and the crazies were ready and waiting to fill it. Sex education has done wonders for lowering teen pregnancy and STD rates, and that alone makes it a worthwhile endeavour. Remember in England we have the option of state-funded religious schools, I went to Roman Catholic state schools (but there are Protestant, Jewish and Islamic schools), and there the sex and relationships education will be tailored to those sensitivities - so parents have a lot of options - the one option they don’t have any longer is to keep their children ignorant.

If I were a parent, I would get a jump on teaching this stuff and make sure that my children had my version ingrained so that they could challenge anything anyone else taught them that they didn’t like the sound of.