Conservatives for Women
Relationship and Sex Education Guidance in Schools
How we got to here and what to do about it.
A Briefing Note by Caroline ffiske for Conservatives for Women, November 2022
The Relationship and Sex Education Guidance for Schools, introduced by the Conservative Government in 2019, continues to do significant damage in schools and to school children - and to generate bad press for the Conservatives. Week after week, newspapers run articles about: teachers being sacked because they refuse to lie to pupils about a child’s sex or refuse to comply with a child’s demand to use ‘new pronouns’; parents complaining that their child has been ‘socially transitioned’ at school without their consent, or their daughter came home and said she might be a boy inside, or their son has told them children can change sex and that boys can get pregnant. All this, seemingly condoned by the Conservatives 2019 RSE Guidance for Schools.
Shortly after the 2019 RSE Guidance was introduced, Conservative Education Ministers
themselves agreed there were problems with it.
They tried to address them. However these measures were by then, too little too late. They hardly stemmed a flow of unscientific, transgressive, sexist material into schools, much of it promoting ‘gender ideology’ and seemingly endorsed by the 2019 Guidance.
Before more harm is done to individual pupils, and to the standards, rigour, and credibility of our education system, the Government must undertake a proper review of the 2019 RSE Guidance at the same time as implementing some quick wins to improve the situation.
Our Briefing Note sets out the background to this issue. It is intended to be read by parents, teachers, MPs, other interested parties; anyone who is taking an interest in the debate around the promotion of gender ideology within our schools. It outlines how we got to where we are. If we understand where problems lie, it is easier to work out how to fix them. The report makes the following recommendations:
Recommendations
Recommendation 1: The Government should undertake a full review of the 2019 RSE Guidance and its impact. It should call for: examples of the RSE materials that are being used in schools as a result of the Guidance; parent / teacher testimony about the impact it has had on children, families, teachers, school life; and parent / teacher testimony about how they have attempted to stand up for science and child safeguarding in the light of the Guidance and the response this has received. The Human Rights organisation, Sex Matters, and five other groups have also called for a similar “Cass Style” review into the
promotion of gender ideology in schools.
Recommendation 2: The government should require all schools to publish their full suite of RSE resources on their websites, alongside the names of external providers used. This will allow parents full visibility of potentially controversial materials. This should be done immediately.
Recommendation 3: Following a Cass Style review, the government needs to go back to the drawing board. It needs to develop new RSE Guidelines that takes ideology out of the schools system, and respects science, free speech, child safeguarding, and parent’s concerns about what is appropriate for teaching in schools. It also needs to develop robust guidance around the handling of wider manifestations of gender ideology in schools, that have arisen partly as a result of the 2019 Guidance, taking an approach that is safeguarding led.