Thread by @NoSecretLessons

A 🧵about yesterday's #BBCAntiSocial... and the RSE debate.

https://twitter.com/BBC_CurrAff/status/1636736346638237697

I’ve just listened in detail to this, which included discussion of my ICO Tribunal Appeal case. Amazingly, @adamfleming gave Sophie Whitehead of School of Sexuality Education (SSE) (which is an interested party in the Tribunal) the chance to broadcast inaccurate and negative...

...comments about me (an identifiable person), without expressing any caution or giving me a right to reply - even when Sophie Whitehead suggested I was acting in “bad faith”.

How is this credible, unbiased journalism @adamfleming? Why is the BBC offering SW the chance to speak ill of another person in the same Tribunal? And did you think it was reasonable for an education charity to speak unpleasantly about a parent of a child they taught?

What research was undertaken for this interview, which gave SSE considerable opportunity to publicise their position, with a notable lack of serious critique by the BBC?

Please may I present some facts to you @adamfleming:

On #BBCantisocial Sophie Whitehead of SSE said the following about my request to see the resources her charity used to teach my daughter:

"These people" refers to me, a mother of a child SSE taught. I can confirm I wasn't offered the opportunity to see the materials. And I did not decline to it. And I have not acted in bad faith and it is appalling to me that the BBC has allowed someone to broadcast that I did.

But let’s examine the veracity of Ms. Whitehead’s claim by using email correspondence between my school and SSE (obtained sometime after the event by Subject Access Request).

Background: In early Oct 2021 my daughter was taught an RSE lesson on ‘Consent’ by SSE. I had the right to withdraw, but agreed to her attending as I think it is a good subject to learn about.

At home she reported SSE had encouraged her to be ‘Sex Positive’ and told her we live in a ‘Heteronormative’ society which is a bad thing. Concerned what this meant and that no one had informed me about this training, I asked to see the resources used.

The school declined, saying they couldn't show me because the SSE would not share their resources for copyright reasons. Below is an email from SSE to the school, explaining “We can’t share slides unfortunately because of copyright”. Instead they offered a breakdown of the lesson

The minimal breakdown is shown below. It omitted the subject of ‘Sex Positivity’ and ‘Heteronormativity’ and other contentious aspects described by my daughter. I therefore doubted I was being told the full nature of the lesson and asked again to see the slide resources.

I was aware that transparency is required by the DfE’s statutory RSE Guidance but the school explained it was out of their hands.

I therefore called the SSE to ask why they would not share a copy of the actual resources. It was a short, civil conversation and I was told that a more detailed description would be sent. Here is the email the SSE employee sent to the school, following the call:

However, unbeknownst to me, the CEO of the SSE (who I have never met or corresponded with) intervened, sending the following email shortly afterwards, which included false insinuations that I was harassing her employee.

The “long time speaking to this parent” was 16 mins and we did not discuss LGBTQIA+ inclusivity. I questioned if the lesson had been impartial and suggested it wasn't appropriate to keep resources secret when they were paid for by a state funded school that requires transparency.

I did not know about this communication. The very next thing that happened from my viewpoint, is that the Head Teacher of our school emailed to explain that the SSE had withdrawn cooperation, because they thought I might be a harasser.

The SSE now would not send even a detailed outline, let alone provide a copy of the slides. (NB At the time, I had no public social media accounts and no public voice on this subject.) I was utterly shocked.

The Head’s letter, said that if I didn’t like the lessons I should remove my daughter. But how could I choose to remove her from lessons that are not accurately described in advance? And why should my daughter not receive Consent education of a properly impartial standard?

Importantly, DfE statutory guidance says RSE must “teach pupils about LGBT” not “LGBTQIA+” as SSE claimed in their email.

LGBTQIA+ is the SSE’s preferred ‘interpretation’ of RSE, as is detailed in their RSE consultation document here: static1.squarespace.com/static/57dbe27…

The document says:
“In this document we firstly aim to lay out the ways in which this guidance lends itself to an intersectional feminist, evidence- based, sex-positive, LGBTQIA+ inclusive RSE."

"Secondly, we detail the ways in which this guidance could be built upon, developed or how sections could be interpreted in a way that aligns with our aforementioned approach.”

This advice includes:

“Avoid giving problematic credence to long-term relationships and marriage” + “educating outside of cis and heteronormativity means being inclusive of all genders and sexualities from the very start - primary age - and consistently throughout RSE”.

They also advocate “being sex-positive”. The SSE’s views of what Sex Positivity means can be found here: schoolofsexed.org/blog-articles/…

Excerpts from the definition of Sex Positivity include:

Arguably, these views constitute controversial, partisan opinions, which should not be promoted as fact or moral certainty in schools, nor presented without a balance of opposing opinion, according to the Education Act s406/407.

Concerned about the meaning of these ideas, I researched the SSE further. I found live links (now removed) on the charity’s website that led to their Workshop Facilitator’s private company AMAppointment.com, which promotes sex toys, pornography and anal masturbation.

I also found links to their Sexual Reproduction Lead’s blog squishsquashsquelch.com, (not currently online) which included a video of her singing “Let’s All Masturbate” to the tune of “Let’s Fall In Love”.

Their website also presented lesson plans that presented the idea that “virginity does not exist” and they gave teenagers the following task, which could be considered a safeguarding risk, if a child was recorded speaking about sex acts on a video call.

@adamfleming #BBCAntiSocial @BBCRadio4 Miriam Cate's report details these associations and controversial lessons, but the BBC did not trouble Ms. Whitehead with any detailed enquiry about them. Instead the BBC allowed her to cast aspersions about a concerned parent.

Your programme also gave Ms. Whitehead the opportunity to explain why some RSE companies do not share their materials. She said:

@adamfleming @BBCRadio4 do you you agree with Ms. Whitehead’s assertions that we parents are not capable of understanding what her resources mean on our own? And why did you not clarify to the public that it is not up to organisations like hers how much they show parents...

...because it is a statutory requirement that:

“Parents should be given every opportunity to understand the purpose and content of Relationships Education and RSE”

and

“Schools should ensure that parents know what will be taught and when”.

So back to the withheld lesson plan. I put some of this info to the school and they contacted the SSE again, saying the Head Teacher was now keen to see the lesson resources herself, so they could “manage the parents’ concerns”.

The SSE replied that the slides could be shown to the school but that they should not be shared further and should be deleted once the school had seen them:

In Nov the CEO of the school’s Multi Academy Trust also tried to secure the right to share the lesson resources with me. She suggested that I ought to be able to see the materials.

The SSE replied to say “We would really prefer that you do not share your slides with the parent” and reiterated the idea I might be a harasser - this time suggesting online harassment:

“There are some fringe parent groups which have an issue with organisations like ours because we are explicitly LGBTQIA+ inclusive, and this parent could in theory be part of one of these groups”

I had no online presence that could possibly have given them cause to write this.

In this email the SSE did suggest perhaps they could show me the slides in person however the school did not forward this offer and I certainly never declined it, since I had no idea it existed. I only gained access to these emails several months later.

Instead I was offered a meeting with the CEO of the MAT. She spontaneously tried to show me some of the slides on her laptop - this was entirely her decision, not the SSE’s. I think she wanted to help the school meet its obligations but I do not know this for sure.

However she did not explain the formal basis on which I was being shown them. I therefore asked her to secure a copy instead, in order that I could make a formal Stage 3 Complaint, which is my right as a public service user.

I was not prepared to look at slides which I had repeatedly been told were under protected copyright, by a company which was alleging I was a harasser, without formal terms. And just seeing them would offer no proof of what I had seen, such that I could make a formal complaint.

The SAR correspondence shows I was correct to be cautious, the SSE had never granted permission to share the actual slides, without them being present.

There is more evidence of how the SSE and the school seemed to reinforce a false idea about me to each other - sometimes expressed by people I had never even met or corresponded with, simply based on a fiction I was anti-LGBTQIA+. This was a really horrible episode for my family.

Notably in the outcome of the formal school complaint the Governors concluded that there was no evidence I was a harasser and that the SSE’s values were inconsistent with the school’s and their employment would be terminated and the issues referred to the DfE @educationgovuk

Perhaps the @educationgovuk @SusanAclandHood @GillianKeegan @NickGibbUK would like to report back on this referral by a DfE employee, regarding concerns about the SSE? I have certainly heard nothing.

Lastly @adamfleming I would like to address your programme’s reporting of the “Dick Pics” research. Here is what your producer Phoebe said:

“Yeah, so, small, single sex groups aged between 12-16 drew the explicit images that they had been sent on their mobile phones. So...

...they’re known as “dick pics”, so obviously then you had children drawing erect penises and writing some of the explicit text that came with these messages but that wasn’t a lesson plan it was actually a research project and that’s now ended.”

I'm not sure I get the "so obviously" part of this statement! Nor what is meant by "that's now ended". Does that make it any better? Did your programme intend to normalise reintroducing girls of 12+ to sexual harassment by drawing their harassers' "dick pics"?

I don't believe it was mentioned that this ‘research’ was actually conducted in schools, during lesson times by SSE and co-authored by Ms. Whitehead and it has clearly informed their continuing play dough activities.

It is described in this paper titled titled “Play-Doh Vulvas and Felt Tip Dick Pics: Disrupting pallocentric matter(s) in Sex Education” journals.oslomet.no/index.php/rerm…

When asked about the play dough exercises, Sophie Whitehead said "The point of that activity is to teach children about the different parts of the body" - no mention of "disrupting phallocentric matter(s)" then...

Here are some excerpts from her research paper that explain what the Dick Pic and Play Dough Vulvas actually mean to SSE:

So @adamfleming @BBCRadio4 #AntiSocial Please can you tell me if you think you gave the full story on your programme yesterday, about RSE, secrecy, and the SSE - and why you would normalise such an employment of children as young as 12 in the classroom?

Perhaps @HazelCMorgan, @BBCr4Today journalist and Trustee of the SSE, could give a view on the very favourable presentation provided for SSE yesterday?

Perhaps even a declaration of BBC interests should have been made before you provided an hour long advert for a charity that dished out completely unfounded accusations of "bad faith" to members of the public? @BBC @BBCRadio4

So a little bit more on this, raising some serious questions for @BBC_CurrAff @BBCRadio4 @adamfleming #BBCantisocial…

@BBCRadio4 employee @HazelCMorgan retweets news of SSE (formerly called Sexsplain) receiving an award from the Family Planning Association - the award ceremony is held in a sex toy and fetish wear shop called ‘Sh!’

So that’s children’s sex ed, rewarded in an adult sex shop…?

The SSE's Workshop Facilitator (i.e. RSE teacher), Nadia Deen worked for that shop and advertises Sh! and the SSE (plus porn channel Royal Fetish Films) on her website AMAppointment.com. There were also links from SSE's charitable, RSE website to AMApp.com.

It is quite possible that Ms. Deen taught my daughter, but the school, the SSE *and* even the ICO have all refused to tell me who was in the classroom. They say the privacy of a teacher outweighs the public interest to know who is teaching our children.

They also claim that suitable safeguarding was undertaken, so I just have to trust them. This implies safeguarding procedures are always infallible and state funded people working with children need not identify themselves to parents. Does @ICOnews wish to review that decision?

This conflicting interest of sex toy sales and porn promotion was one of the key concerns I raised with my school (in 'good faith' btw @adamfleming), re child safeguarding and the potential commericalisation of RSE, esp the merging of the adult sex industry with teaching children

@HazelCMorgan also supported the SSE when Instagram suspended their account because it was considered too 'sexually suggestive'.

And let's not forget that SSE supplied the educational consultancy for the withdrawn theatre production the 'Family Sex Show' which introduced songs about masturbation, comically simulated sex acts and nudity to an audience of 5+

So let's just recap: @BBCRadio4 has given a long slot to a charity that one of their employees is trustee and supporter of, and permitted that charity to discredit a parent who had genuine concerns about child safeguarding and conflicting commercial interests in the RSE sector.