New Government RSE and PSHE guidance – Report Card: Progress Made but Can Do Better!

I am very pleased to read some of this guidance on relationships and sex education (RSE) and personal, social, health and economic education (PSHE), specifically the following two paragraphs.

Paragraph 70:

In teaching this, schools should be mindful that beyond the facts and the law about biological sex and gender reassignment, there is significant debate and they should be careful not to endorse any particular view or teach it as fact. For example, they should not teach as fact that all people have a gender identity. Schools should avoid language and activities which repeat or enforce gender stereotypes. Schools should be mindful to avoid any suggestion that social transition is a simple solution to feelings of distress or discomfort.

Paragraph 72:

Where schools decide to use external resources, they should avoid materials that use cartoons or diagrams that oversimplify this topic, that could be interpreted as being aimed at younger children, or that perpetuate stereotypes or encourage pupils to question their gender. Schools should consult parents on the content of external resources on this topic in advance and make all materials available to them on request as set out in the section on openness with parents.

I successfully campaigned for and shaped compulsory PSHE in 2016 as prior to that pornography seemed to have become the go-to in sex education. The reason I am happy to see these paragraphs is because I have been horrified by the gender identity ideology since then.

In 2016, gender still meant the socially constructed gender stereotypes and gender roles. They are the root cause of misogyny and male violence against women and girls. They impact access to justice, safety, health care and citizenship. It is because of this that building critical analysis skills around gender was key to education as a way to prevent practices such as (but not limited to) child sexual abuse and exploitation, sexual violence, domestic abuse and female genital mutilation (FGM). My campaign was in memory of a girl who via gender stereotypes of sexual objectification was raped and murdered. The whole point was to make sure girls were safer.

Since then, we all claim to care about the safety of girls. But from many these are just empty promises. We see the murder of Sarah Everard and a television series like Adolescence. Meanwhile, there are files that are missing and conviction rates that have stayed at record low levels, as does funding for the sector. But alongside all this we have had the introduction of a new idea of gender that claims to be progressive as part of the transgender movement. This has created confusion for teachers not trained in PSHE, with frequent reinforcement of the gender stereotypes the curriculum asked them to prevent. This was as a result of the misrepresentation of equality by bad faith actors in the unregulated RSE resource world. Unfortunately, vulnerable young people questioning their identity is big business and another form of child exploitation in many cases.

I hope this guidance gives teachers the clarity they need. The teaching profession already has a responsibility not to teach faiths or opinions as facts and to be politically neutral. This is something some activist teachers have forgotten. This guidance should hopefully mean vulnerable children are supported and given the tools to have safe and happy relationships with themselves and others. And that's what is important here ‒ the children, and their safety, their mental health, and their knowledge about consent and respect in all their relationships. They also need to know that if something is wrong at home, school is a safe place to ask for help.

Because if PSHE is taught correctly ‒ including gender stereotypes being challenged ‒ it will help to prevent harm. Our children must be kept safe. Safer than my sister was. And nothing is more important than that.