Conservatives for Women
Written by Caroline ffiske, 15 June 2022
In recent years, our children’s education, and the ideas they are exposed to in schools, have become increasingly contested. In particular, the Government’s 2019 Relationship and Sex Education Guidance for schools has inadvertantly led to a significant increase in the ideological, unscientific, and transgressive materials being taught to our children, much of it relating to gender ideology.
When parents have sought to engage with schools on these materials, to view these materials, they have sometimes met with resistance and sometimes been blocked. Commercial confidentiality is one of the reasons that has been cited by schools and resource providers.
Conservatives for Women are therefore delighted to see the proposed amendment to the current Schools Bill shown above, and available here. Proposed by (Labour) Baroness Morris and (Conservative) Lord Sandhurst, if accepted, it would clarify that parents have the right to view all curriculum materials that their children will be exposed to in schools.
There are many reasons for supporting this amendment. Schools should welcome and encourage parental engagement. As we move forward as a country, we continue to engage in passionate debate about how science, history, and our traditions and culture, should be transmitted to our children and their children. We all, including schools, should welcome and encourage wide democratic participation, as well as openness and challenge, in this debate.
But our particular interest is that of gender ideology and the way that it is increasingly being introduced to our children via our schools.
In 2019, the Government updated the Relationships and Sex Education Guidance for schools making the teaching of certain content compulsory for all schools. The new guidance was clear that content should be age-appropriate, developmentally-appropriate, and anchored in science and material facts.
However, not all schools have followed this guidance. A significant number of independent 'RSE providers' create content which is age-inappropriate, arguably transgressive, and unanchored in science.
Providers have created materials that promote to school children the ideas that: biological sex is a spectrum; that we all have an 'inner gender identity' which should take priority over biological sex; that our assumed genders were 'assigned at birth'; - all this is part of 'gender ideology'.
Transgressive materials include group lessons for primary-aged children about masturbation and 'wet dreams'.
Meanwhile, the 2019 RSE Guidance is also very clear that parents should have visibility of what is being taught to their children. Parents must be consulted in developing and reviewing RSE policies. Policies should 'reflect the communities they serve'. 'Policies must be made available to parents'. Policies should be 'published on the school website'. This intention for openness also covers RSE content: Policies should 'set out the subject content, how it is taught and who is responsible for teaching it'. Policies should 'include sections covering details of content and schemes of work'. This clear call for parental engagement reflects the potential sensitivity around RSE subject matter and should work as a bulwark against ideology and inappropriate and inaccurate materials.
Nevertheless, parents across the country have been alarmed by their children returning home from school and recounting stories about the transgressive / scientifically inaccurate material they have been taught. When parents have approached schools asking to view RSE material some have been blocked. When parents have pressed hard on this matter, some schools have continued to block them and some have used the argument that RSE content provided by external providers is commercially confidential.
We consider the promotion of gender ideology in schools to be directly linked to the number of teenagers now identifying as ‘trans’, some of whom will go on to access cross-sex hormone treatment which, if persisted with, will result in sterility, lack of sexual function, known health consequences such as osteoporosis, other unknown health consequences, and a lifetime as a medical patient.
How are children supposed to process the following? How many of today's girls wear everyday clothes that are closer to GI Joe? So what does that suggest to them?
Hence Conservatives for Women supports and welcomes this amendment:
1) There is ample evidence that the 2019 RSE Guidance has resulted in schools teaching age-inappropriate, transgressive, scientifically-inaccurate material to school children.
2) Meanwhile it is abundantly clear that the intention of the 2019 RSE Guidance was to enable parents to engage in detail with the materials their children would be exposed to.
3) Yet there is clear evidence that some RSE Resource providers & schools have prevented parents from seeing materials, including using the argument of commercial confidentiality.
4) We therefore welcome this amendment to the Schools Bill which clarifies that parents have a right to view all curriculum materials used in their children's schools. If this is restricted to being on the school premises, this overcomes any concerns from external providers about commercial confidentiality.
5) If you do too, please email your MP and ask them to indicate to Education Ministers that they support amendment 171F to the Schools Bill. Ask your friends to do the same.
