More than 100 schools in Britain have signed up to an LGBT “best practice” programme under which separate boys’ and girls’ uniforms are ditched, and material promoting gay and transgender lifestyles is spread across all parts of the curriculum.
Elly Barnes, founder of Educate & Celebrate — which promises to turn schools into a “safe space” for LGBT youth — said 120 schools have signed up to its programme.
“In our experience, primary schools are adopting [the programme] faster than secondary schools,” she told The Guardian.
The charity works in partnership for 12 months with schools signed up to its best practice programme, helping institutions implement a “5 point plan”. The programme includes “reviewing policies; developing an LGBT+Inclusive curriculum, with lessons plans, assemblies, book collections; … [and] increasing visibility in the school environment.”
Educate & Celebrate’s blog boasts that staff attended the ‘Women’s March’ against Donald Trump in January, attacking the U.S. president for having “failed to appoint a new LGBT envoy to the house with just days to go until his inauguration”.
A key aspect of the charity’s programme is helping schools “establish an LGBT+Inclusive curriculum through our book collections, assemblies and lessons in all subject areas and key stages”. Their goal is to make children “aware of the everyday existence of LGBT+People”.
A geography lesson plan for Key Stage 1 pupils (aged between five and seven) has children read And Tango Makes Three, a book which concerns two male penguins at a zoo who ‘adopt’ a baby penguin.
The lesson plan tells teachers to “discuss the story”, asking pupils: “Did [the baby penguin] have all of his needs met? Who did this? Did it matter that they were both male? Why?”
Educate & Celebrate say the sample geography lesson, entitled “Penguin Habitats” will encourage children to “challenge ‘typical’ behaviours and gender stereotyping” and “actively confront prejudice”.
Teaching resources on the charity’s website show Educate & Celebrate advocate promoting LGBT lifestyles in every part of the curriculum.
Plans for maths lessons aimed at teaching pupils aged 11 to 14 about averages, and calculating one number as a percentage of another, will use the number of attendees at gay pride festivals around the world as the basis for practice questions.
Another of the programme’s five points dictates that schools “increase visibility” of sexual minorities, with “displays in key areas, and a reception greeting” which makes every constituency of LGBT youth “feel represented”.
A former delegate to one of the charity’s teacher training days said Educate & Celebrate “influenced everything” about the school, which “changed [its] vision statement to reflect” what was learned at the charity’s event.
“There are rainbow touches throughout the school!” added the delegate, quoted on the Educate & Celebrate website.
Breitbart London reported Monday that one of Britain’s top private schools plans to bring in ‘gender-neutral’ uniforms and unisex toilets, whilst teachers drop gender-specificic terms like ‘boys’ and ‘girls’ from their vocabulary
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