Radical activists are influencing sex education and trans issues in schools, a report has suggested.
The analysis, by British think tank Civitas, urges parents to be “vigilant” over what children are being taught in classrooms by some self-declared experts.
It calls for a “union of parents” to support those concerned about how schools approach sex and relationship issues.
Over half of those pupils know someone at their school who wants to transition, or has completed the process.
The statistics, gathered by Deltapoll, also reveal that just under a third of 16- to 18-year-olds say they have been taught “a woman can have a penis.”
One in five has been told that “a man can get pregnant.”
Vigilance
The research also reveals a split between teens and parents over allowing 16-year-olds to legally change gender.Fifty-six percent of those aged 16 to 18 back the idea, however only a third of parents with children aged 12 to 16 years old do so.
The two separate polling exercises commissioned for “Show, tell and leave nothing to the imagination: How critical social justice is undermining British schooling,” find that contentious ideas are seemingly widespread in schools, with evidence they aren’t always presented in accordance within “the legal obligations to impartiality.”
A large majority of parents polled said they want unrestricted legal rights to see all Relationships, Sex, and Health Education (RSHE) materials and lesson plans.
Responding to the evidence gathered, report author Jo-Anne Nadler said urgent steps need to be taken to give parents more power to see what is going on in the school system.
She said, “Parents need to be vigilant about exactly what is being taught to children and by whom.”
Nadler argues that a “revolution” delivered “largely by stealth” is supported by a burgeoning industry of external providers and often self-declared “expert” consultants on issues such as race, equity, gender, and sexuality.
Radical Activists
The parent campaigner added that legislation has “opened the door” to radical activists, and “ushered them straight into the classroom.”“The issues here though go beyond the traditional queasiness that any one community might have to discussions about sex in school at all but to the way in which this strand of education has become another potent vehicle for communicating an assertive, proscriptive, and hermetically sealed set of values, often at odds with the majoritarian views,” she said in the report.
“It is important to see it, and its co-opting by activists, as part of a more comprehensive identitarian political agenda encompassing and prescribing how children should, within one overarching worldview, consider race, gender, sexuality, masculinity, family, mental health, and the environment.”
Nadler denied that a “conspiratorial mindset” was being applied to the analysis, adding “it has been explicitly framed in these terms by many of the external providers going into schools.”
She referenced sex education group School for Sexuality Education which “explain their approach to RSE as based on ‘equality/equity... intersectional... rights based... decolonizing... and trauma-informed.’”
She added: “Can one blame activists for taking advantage of the legislative framework, and the constitutional fraying of the United Kingdom, that has opened the door to radical actors, and ushered them straight into the classroom?
Impartiality Inspections
Apart from bolstering parental rights over controversial materials in schools, Nadler also recommended that impartiality inspections should be carried out by Ofsted and the Independent Schools Inspectorate.She also suggested a registration system for third party RSE providers.
In March, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak ordered an independent review of sex education in schools in England after MPs and parents raised the alarm about age-inappropriate content.
Sunak said he asked the Department for Education to “ensure that schools are not teaching inappropriate or contested content” in RSHE.
“Our priority should always be the safety and wellbeing of children and schools should also make curriculum content and materials available to parents,” he said.
“As a result of all of this, we are bringing forward a review of RSHE statutory guidance and we will start our consultation as soon as possible,” he added.
Conservative MP Miriam Cates raised the issue and said that pupils were being subjected to relationships and sex education classes that are “age inappropriate, extreme, sexualising, and inaccurate.”
Cates called on Sunak to commission an independent inquiry to “end inappropriate sex education.”
“Graphic lessons on oral sex, how to choke your partner safely, and 72 genders. This is what passes for relationships and sex education in British schools,” she said.
“Across the country, children are being subjected to lessons that are age inappropriate, extreme, sexualising, and inaccurate, often using resources from unregulated organisations that are actively campaigning to undermine parents,” she added.
“This is not a victory for equality, it is a catastrophe for childhood,” said Cates.
The prime minister’s official spokesman said at the time: “We believe children should be supported to make informed decisions and those need to be factually based and age appropriate.
“So the PM has asked for the Department of Education to look at some of the issues raised by the MPs in the letter to him to make sure all schools are compliant with existing guidance.”
He stressed “clear guidance” already exists on external speakers and resources “and that’s something that we want the review to look at.”
