Amendment Aims to Give Parents the Right to View Education Materials

Students take a break between classes at Park Lane Academy in Halifax, northwest England on March 17, 2021. Oli Scarff/AFP via Getty Images

A new amendment aims to give parents the chance to view all curriculum materials that their children will be introduced to, especially on relationships and sex education matters.

Proposed by Labour Baroness Morris and Conservative Lord Sandhurst on June 10, if accepted, the amendment would clarify in law that parents have the right to view all curriculum materials that their children will be exposed to in schools.

“Where parents request it, schools must allow parents to view all curriculum materials used in schools, including those provided by external third-party charitable and commercial providers,” it was written in the amendment.

The British government’s Schools Bill, which is currently in the House of Lords, is a new ambitious piece of legislation that aims to raise schooling standards across the country by increasing attendance and improving safeguarding.

In 2019, a statutory requirement for schools in England to teach Relationships/ Relationships and Sex Education (RSE) and Health Education, abbreviated as ‘RSHE,' was introduced.

At the time, the government wrote that its guiding principles (pdf) have been “that all of the compulsory subject content must be age-appropriate and developmentally appropriate.”

“It must be taught sensitively and inclusively, with respect to the backgrounds and beliefs of pupils and parents while always with the aim of providing pupils with the knowledge they need of the law,” it added.

Though some have criticised independent RSE providers teaching “gender identity” in classrooms.

One is the School of Sexuality Education which provides in-school workshops on “consent, sexual health, porn, and positive relationships” and who says its approach is “rights-based, sex-positive, non-binary and trauma-informed.”

“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 material,” wrote the campaign group Conservatives for Women in response to the news. “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,” added Conservatives for Women.

UK & Ireland Campaign Director at CitizenGO and Catholic writer Caroline Farrow told The Epoch Times that the amendment was “extremely welcome news,” but she added that a “repeal of the legislation that makes relationship and sex education compulsory in primary schools, is urgently required.”

Farrow was instrumental in setting up the petition to scrap The Family Sex Show which invited families to take children from age five to explore themes such as “boundaries, pleasure, consent, queerness, and sex” as well as featuring full-frontal nudity. The School of Sexuality is a consultant to the Family Sex Show.

“If this is restricted to being on the school premises, this overcomes any concerns from external providers about commercial confidentiality,” she said.

Farrow said that “education should be a partnership between parents and schools.”

“Parents are the first and primary educators and schools have no right to impose values on children, especially when said values run contrary to the parents own values and ethics, whether religious or secular,” she added.

“Parents have a right to know what their children are being taught and several red flags should be raised if schools are trying to hide sexually explicit or LGBT curricula from parents, especially when said curricula contains scientifically inaccurate material,” added Farrow.

In neighbouring Wales, parents are currently fighting Wales’ compulsory sex education, which the government says will “gradually empower learners” from a young age in subjects such as equity, sex, gender, and sexuality. A High Court judge has granted a judicial review of the compulsory sex education plans.

The exact material content of the Welsh RSE has not come out yet. But it is known that RSE has entirely removed the word “sex” from its curriculum along with the terms “male,” “female,” “boys,” “girls,” “straight,” or “heterosexual.”

Children will also learn about “relationships, rights, equity, sex, gender, sexuality, bodies, body image, sexual health, well-being as well as violence, safety, and support.”