Primary school children from the age of five will be taught about gender reassignment, LGBT “families”, and other controversial topics, with parents denied an opt-out, according to reports.
Children across the country will also be taught about female genital mutilation (FGM) — with a focus on support available for victims and the fact it is illegal — under statutory guidance for headteachers unveiled Monday.
The new curriculum guidelines form part of the Conservative government’s controversial introduction of compulsory sex and relationship classes, which are set to be rolled out across all UK schools from next year.
The move has seen fierce opposition from conservative Christian, Jewish, and Muslim parents, while a petition requesting parents be allowed to opt their children out of the lessons has attracted almost 110,000 signatures.
According to the Sunday Times, the new guidance — which is the first major national update to sex education in almost 20 years — will make it illegal for parents to take their children out of the classes in secondary school.
Resources published by the Sex and Education Forum to guide schools in teaching the new content outlines supposedly age-appropriate issues to be discussed at various levels of schooling, which claims children aged nine to 10 “want to talk about” topics including masturbation, and “about how people can get diseases including HIV, from sex and how they can be prevented”.
Questions to be discussed between the ages of 11 to 13 include, “What is the difference between transvestite and trans-sexual?” and, “My religion says that being gay or having sex before is marriage is wrong, what should I think?” while at 16, pupils should be taught “how to disclose positive HIV status to a sexual partner, family and friends,” according to the document.
Over the weekend, the Observer reported that secondary schools will also be required to teach topics such as forced marriage, “honour”-related abuse, and FGM under the new curriculum, in addition to mental health awareness and technology-related issues like so-called “sexting”.
“Almost twenty years on from the last time guidance on sex education was updated, there is a lot to catch up on,” said the education secretary, Damian Hinds, asserting that, “So many things about the way people interact have changed, and this new world, seamless between online and offline, can be difficult to navigate.
“Although sex education is only mandatory to teach at secondary, it must be grounded in a firm understanding and valuing of positive relationships, and respect for others, from primary age.”
“In turn positive relationships are connected with good mental health, which itself is linked with physical wellbeing. So it is appropriate to make health education universal alongside relationships and sex education,” he said.
Parents are set to protest outside Parliament on Monday, as MPs are due to debate the popular petition, which argues that “it is the parent’s fundamental right to teach their child RSE topics or to at least decide who teaches them and when and how they are taught”.
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