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PrimarySecondaryHealth & Wellbeing

Statutory RSE And PSHE In Schools Is Largely Hailed As A Positive Move – But Louise Burton Has Some Serious Reservations

“Reducing human relationships to a skill that can be learnt is social engineering by any other name”

Louise Burton
by Louise Burton
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From September 2019 – and following pressure from a whole range of concerned groups, including four parliamentary committees – Relationships and Sex Education (RSE) is set to become statutory in secondary schools in England, according to a Department for Education Policy Statement published earlier this year.

It is also expected that PSHE will become statutory in both primary and secondary schools at the same time. (It is currently statutory in independent schools.)

The Statement outlines an ambitious plan to educate children in a full-blown list of issues and “life skills” and declares that it is the Government’s ambition to “support all young people to stay safe and prepare for modern life..” Together, RSE and PSHE will “provide for young people to support them to be safe, healthy, happy and successful.” It will be “age appropriate” and prepare pupils “for the issues they will soon face.”

Social engineering by stealth

In this instance, ‘life skills’ appears to mean lessons in consent and how to stay safe from abuse. It is believed that sex education as it currently exists does not go far enough.

The phrase ‘safe, healthy, happy and successful’ is a broad and ill-defined aim – and therefore one destined to fail – but it is also a sinister move, as it is expects teachers to talk to children as young as five about abuse, rape and sexuality.

A likely, if unintended, outcome is that young children and adolescents will learn to perceive themselves and those around them as potential future victims or perpetrators of sexual violence.

Who decides what material or scenarios are ‘age appropriate’ in schools? What will the content of the new syllabus look like? The DfE doesn’t have the answer. As well as conferring with teachers, parents and pupils it will be consulting “experts in safeguarding and child well-being, subject experts, faith groups, voluntary organisations and other interested parties”. The only thing that the DfE is sure about, is that it is now up to schools to condition children to monitor each other’s behaviour and to be suspicious of others. Reducing human relationships to a skill that can be learnt is social engineering by any other name. Asking children to think about their interactions and relationships according to a script from a scheme of work is conditioning that many would have dismissed as indoctrination in the past.

Misguided concerns

The impulse to instruct children in how to think and feel about a number of issues is now accepted amongst many educators and is entrenched in the curriculum.

For example, asking children how a poem makes them feel is a normal exercise in most English classrooms, and writing a letter home from the trenches is a standard assignment in a history lesson.

But the introduction of compulsory relationship education is more alarming in my view. It is asking teachers to probe children’s feelings and then to train them to be distrustful of their own desires and those of their peers. It is also possible that it will indulge the teenage obsession with emotions instead of teaching them that school is a place where emotions should be kept in check.

Creating a scholarly environment and refusing to allow outpourings of teenage angst would far better prepare young people to be resilient and self-aware than any group therapy sessions or instructions in how to ask someone out.

The pressure for these amendments to the PSHE provision in schools comes from a response to some high-profile cases of habitual abuse of young girls. It also claims to be due to the prevalence of ‘unwanted’ attention received by girls in schools and the risks posed to young people from online grooming and the distress associated with ‘sexting’.

The DfE statement acknowledges that the amendment is the result of pressure from a wide range of groups such as Mumsnet and the National Union of Students. These organisations see themselves as acting in the interests of children and young people. But it is wrong to think that classroom discussions about consent will prevent hideous crimes in the future. That is the job of the police force and social services.

I also find it unconvincing that yet more lessons on internet safety are needed in schools. ICT schemes of work, PSHE lessons, assemblies and even English lessons address this issue ad nauseum.

Hectoring isn’t healthy

Since the introduction of PSHE in 2000, schools have been regarded as the best place for young people to learn a plethora of skills which will help to prevent social problems in the future and create decent citizens.

The list of issues to be covered by a typical PSHE syllabus has always been exhaustive but the emphasis on emotions and behaviours is more recent and far more intrusive than a lesson in how to write a CV.

It seems to be widely accepted that a classroom is the right environment for a discussion about intimacy and feelings. The language employed to promote these changes is deceptive. The DfE Policy Statement is peppered with the word ‘healthy’. This is sometimes ‘healthy relationships’ and sometimes, ‘healthy minds’. It employs the language of the therapist and in so doing, sounds harmless and well-meaning.

Rather than promoting empowerment, these initiatives express extreme pessimism about young people and the future. Although expressed in the language of safety and healthiness, the view that children need to be taught how to conduct relationships reveals a lack of confidence in parents to positively influence their children and a refusal to recognise that the majority of young people will learn through experience how to enjoy fulfilling relationships.

Schools have the capacity to inspire and motivate young people to do amazing things; hectoring and prying will do more harm than good.

Louise Burton is a history teacher and has worked in secondary education for over 20 years. She is a member of the Institute of Ideas Education Forum, which gathers monthly to discuss trends in education policy, theory and practice. To find out about the next event, visit instituteofideas.com/forums/education_forum.

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