The Shameful Attack On the Innocence of Our Children
Introduction
There is a simmering and rapidly growing cohort of parents in the United Kingdom from every county who are raising genuine deeply held concerns about the unnecessary sexualisation of our children in British Schools under the PSHE banner (Personal, Social, Health & Economic Education).
Amendments to the Child and Social Work Act 2017 enacted in September 2020 but delayed until 2021 created the situation where parents are no longer lawfully able to remove their children from specific PSHE lessons.
These changes to the education of our children ‘through the back door’, like many other freedoms removed from us under the cover of the Covid Pandemic. This represents a creeping trend toward the removal of parental consent and legal guardianship into the realm of a literal ‘nanny’ state over our children.
And it raises a good question. Who is responsible for the moral and ethical upbringing of our children? At least within my lifetime it has been clear. I’m now unclear at what point the education system has become ‘fuzzy’ about it. I know from speaking to many parents in different forums there is zero ambiguity. To the point where parents are enraged at the governmental overreach.
And what’s more, they are frankly scared by the nature of the lobbying behind this overreach. From organisations with concerning extremist views such as Stonewall.
It has long been the case that the education of British Kids is a lawful requirement. It has also long been the case that indoctrination versus education of our kids in schools has been a line which is blurred and punctuated by a fight by parents over history to regain control.
Well, the bell for the next round just rung. And the parental voice is deafening. Get ready for the battle of the century, because there is nothing more catalysing than parents ready to protect their kids. There will be no division, this subject will bring all communities together.
How Does It Affect You?
Do you have at least one child, grandchild, nephew, or niece below the age of 16 years? Then it affects you. Because Jigsaw is the provider of choice for Kirklees Council, which then pushes this into almost all schools in the new Spen Valley Constituency. Kirklees pay for access to Jigsaw PSHE centrally and provide access to their portal for all schools.
Since schools are under budget and resource strains, they have little choice but to use the Jigsaw materials in their school now that it is lawfully mandated to teach.
The impact of the changes made in the Child and Social Work Act 2017 opened the door to the many organisations wanting to do two things: [1] Profit from selling their PSHE ‘education materials’ to one of the 32,163 schools in the United Kingdom [2] Push their beliefs and values on the 10,320,811 school children in the United Kingdom whilst their parents are not looking.
Many of these organisations, Jigsaw being one of them had placed a veto on schools, disallowing them from revealing teaching materials to parents. Section 9 of the Education Act clearly states that ‘children should be educated in accordance with their parent’s wishes’. Except, apparently, in the view of many of these third party providers when those wishes conflict with the views and beliefs being pushed into schools for commercial gain.
Indeed, one such parent has catalysed others behind her when taking this fight to the courts. Clare Page was denied access to the slides used to teach her 15 year old daughter sex education at Haberdashers’ Hatcham College, and also told that she may not know who would teach the lesson.
Her daughter reported that the lesson included some controversial claims, including the idea that we live in a ‘Heteronormative’ society, that this is not a good thing and that she should be ‘Sex Positive’ in her attitude to relationships. Ms Page was concerned these views might breach the Education Act’s prohibition on political indoctrination and also fail to meet the school’s Equality Act duties, regarding protected fundamental beliefs.
The lesson was provided by an external charity called the School of Sexuality Education and at the time they had inappropriately explicit lesson plans on their website and live links to their teacher’s private company, which advertises amongst other things sex toys, pornographic material.
Could you imagine my horror when I find that Clare has unfortunately lost her first foray in court, with Judge Sophie Buckley ruling that “the commercial interest to keep lesson plans secret from the public, outweighs the public interest to know what children are taught.”
She also ruled that “the privacy of teachers outweighs the public interest to know who is teaching our children.”
This thoroughly shocked me. Clare intends to appeal. I am in support of her and feel grateful someone is taking this further. I’ve supported her through her crowdfunding platform here: Clare Page Crowd Justice Page
What Do I think?
I think the sexualisation of children in schools is wrong. This is a view strongly and very commonly held by the many parents I have spoken with on this issue.
I also think policy moves made by consecutive governments over the last 3 decades have removed the moral & ethical responsibility of bringing up our own children from parents and I find this alarming. I champion a return to traditional family values and state policies which encourage a close, responsible and stable family unit, with the responsibility for the education regarding sex, social responsibility and basic moral values being squarely in the hands of legal guardians and the wider family.
I believe these things because the values and beliefs we each wish our children to engender are so dramatically wide, it is impossible to centralised and standardised in schools. In addition, the prospect of being denied access to what is being taught is downright suspicious at the very best.
I welcome the Education Secretary’s recent move to pin this down in her guidance of March 2023. It has led directly to Jigsaw devising a parent portal for lesson material viewing. I add this falls very short of what will satisfy parents.
I think the changes made in the Child and Social Work Act need a radical rethink, beginning with why the Education Act was by-passed in the first place and the review of the constitutional and statutory clash in law this creates. If there is such a governmental will to provide essential aspects of PSHE to all British Children then why is it not enshrined in the curriculum, where it is properly controlled and legally pinned down? Instead, having been surreptitiously sneaked in through the back door, uncontrolled, open to commercial and capricious manipulation, and denied viewing by the citizens of this country?
We need to look again, and we need to do it fast because parents will not wait. Any holder of public office, who is not aware of, or in denial of this issue needs to be held to account.