Children's boundaries are being over-ridden and parent's efforts to safeguard, undermined.

Written by Caroline ffiske; published 6 May 2022.

Recently the Daily Mail carried an article by the author, Milli Hill, which exposed the type of materials making their way into schools as a result of the Conservative government’s 2019 Relationships and Sex Education reforms.

Since this reform, dozens, if not hundreds, of organisations have spotted a lucrative opportunity to create and sell materials which contain transgressive, age-inappropriate, ideological content to schools.

In her article, Hill made a reference to resources created by Jigsaw which “include a group activity in which a mixed sex group of ten year-olds discuss masturbation in pairs”.

“One mum, who did not wish to be named, said her child’s primary school in Lambeth, South London, had signed a contract with an external provider called Jigsaw, agreeing it would not distribute teaching materials to parents.”

“She sent the school a freedom of information request, but was told that, after consultation with both Jigsaw and legal specialists, they were unable to allow her to see the course materials.”

This last point strikes me as against the government’s guidance. Indeed, when Hill contacted Jigsaw, they said parents could see their materials, in schools, in the presence of a teacher. Well, seemingly, that is not what one parent was told. All remaining ambiguity about this must now be cleared up by the government: parents must have the right to see all and any of their school’s teaching materials.

Following on from Hill’s article, a concerned teacher sent me the material referred to. It is contained in Jigsaw’s “Changing Me - Ages 10-11”. The gist is correct. Jigsaw has produced materials that teach 10-11 year old children, about masturbation, in mixed-sex group settings.

Parents have every right to be concerned, angry; in fact, incandescent.  As they enter puberty, kids instinctively become very private about their bodies. Group discussion about something so private - and which they are likely to have never contemplated, in a sexual way, at the age of ten - is likely to feel awkward, confusing, shameful, shocking, transgressive. The result of public discussion? Tearing away a veil. Trespassing a boundary. Lowering natural inhibition. 

Jigsaw repeatedly refers to the ‘normal’ and ‘natural’ nature of masturbation, to ten-year-olds... Imagine being the parent of a  very quiet private ten-year-old girl who comes home, confused by this?

When Jigsaw tells ten-year-olds ‘it’s absolutely normal’ to masturbate, the corollary is that a child might feel that it is abnormal to not do so. In this sense, it is legitimate to argue that Jigsaw is effectively promoting masturbation to ten-year-olds. This is altering a child’s relationship with his or her own body. This is a transgressive adult imposition.

There are some things that kids don’t want to discuss with their parents. So why on earth does Jigsaw think these things are more appropriately discussed, by Jigsaw, and its trainers, in a classroom setting, full of ten year olds? Who would have guessed that this would be - on a powerpoint slide perhaps - in a British primary school classroom, in 2022, for a group discussion, with ten-year-olds?

The human race survived without the Brave New World of Jigsaw’s inhibition-crushing, boundaries-over-ride.

Adults - do you sit at work having group discussions about masturbation? No? It’s private? Staring sexual stuff in the face, in groups, is transgessive? If ancient and obvious wisdom tells us not to discuss masturbation over lunch, how exactly does Jigsaw lose sight of the fact that the same applies to primary school children?

What are the other possible side effects of normalising sexual discussions between adults they've never met - and school children? Safeguarding concerns anyone? 

We have a pornography crisis amongst our boys and young men. It is destroying the lives of plenty of young people, men and women. Who thinks normalising talk of masturbation, amongst kids, in group settings, is likely to hasten that first click through to a porn site? 

Full disclosure. The Jigsaw document described here is 114 pages long. I have presented extracts. But they speak for themselves. Jigsaw might complain that we should look at the whole document. That is, indeed, what we are asking for. All materials used in schools for RSE lessons should be made available for parents to review, in detail.

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The ‘old days’ where kids / parents muddled their way through the birds and the bees weren’t perfect. The 2019 RSE reforms were well-intentioned. Somehow or other the Conservative government believed that the Big State would do a better job in this tricky area than millions of parents. In my view they could not have been more spectacularly wrong. The RSE reforms have created an open door for transgression, pseudo-science, and harmful ideology to be promoted to our kids.

Modern parents have an extraordinarily difficult time attempting to teach their children to build and maintain boundaries - and to respect those of others. The RSE reforms have made this spectacularly more difficult - we now need to worry about what our kids are seeing in the classroom, as well as everywhere else. 

Fixing the mess will be complicated. Part of the solution is obvious: require all schools to make all RSE materials available to parents for full review, not just in school, but on websites.  Indeed if schools are proud and confident in what they are teaching children, RSE materials should be proactively emailed to parents, in advance of lessons, for their full review.  Why not make this compulsory?