Thread by @FamEdTrust

In November 2014, one of FET's trustees gave evidence to @CommonsEd showing that RSE guidance backed by the DfE was encouraging unlawful sexual activity. The document published by the Sex Education Forum, the PHSE Association and Brook undermined the law on the age of consent 🧵

The Brook Sexual Behaviours Traffic Light tool, which was warmly welcomed by the DfE, gave the green light to 13 year old children ‘consenting to oral and/or penetrative sex with others of the same or opposite gender who are of similar age and developmental ability’.

The tool states that such sexual activity reflects ‘safe and healthy development’ and provides an opportunity for ‘positive feedback’.

FET Trustee Sarah Carter's comments were widely reported in press and media reports worldwide, prompting the PSHE Association to advise the Education Committee that it would be amending its supplementary advice.

The PHSE Association insisted that to "avoid any confusion" it would "make it explicit that it is a safeguarding tool for professionals, not an SRE [sex and relationships education] resource, to avoid any confusion’."

Brook, said that FET had imparted "misinformation" and that there was a "chronic misunderstanding" because the Traffic Light tool is ‘not an SRE resource and it has not been distributed to young people’.

Our late director Norman Wells said: "If giving positive feedback to sexually active children aged 13, 14 and 15 isn’t condoning and encouraging underage sex, then I don’t know what is."

"Brook say that professionals must use the tool within the context of their own legal frameworks. However, professionals are not free to create their own law on the age of consent. The law is clear: sex under the age of 16 is unlawful.

"To give it the green light and to reward it with positive feedback is patently treating the law with contempt and encouraging lawbreaking.

"Most people would question the expertise of anyone who normalises underage sex and gives positive feedback to 13, 14 or 15 year-olds engaging in unlawful sexual activity.

"It is equally alarming that education ministers and the Department for Education (DfE) have such confidence in Brook that they are promoting its supplementary advice on sex and relationships education in schools.

"The supplementary advice refers schools to the traffic light tool as a “useful resource”. We would urge the DfE to think again, to distance themselves from Brook’s supplementary advice and to make sure that underage sex is treated with the seriousness it deserves."

Sadly the DfE failed to listen to FET's advice, since the PHSE Association, Brook and the Sex Education Forum all feature in Miriam Cates' report on inappropriate and explicit RSE materials in schools newsocialcovenant.co.uk/RSE%20BRIEFING…

Brook is still giving out unlawful advice. Sex education is NOT compulsory in primary schools. Teaching primary aged children about relationships is mandatory, but it should focus on family and friendships

"The focus in primary school should be on teaching the fundamental building blocks and characteristics of positive relationships, with particular reference to friendships, family relationships, and relationships with other children and with adults." gov.uk/government/pub…

While being rubber stamped by the DfE, as a ratifying body for RSE the PSHE Association promotes Gender Theory as fact, and has over 50,000 PSHE professionals as members

Despite our evidence to the Education Committee in 2014, in July 2015 then Education Secretary Nicky Morgan announced that the DfE had funded the PSHE Association "to produce case studies to highlight best practice" in teaching PHSE

The DfE was clearly aware that schools needed to publish SRE curricula on their website to make lesson plans freely available to parents in 2015. Yet eight years later we are in a situation where parents are being told by schools that RSE content is copyrighted and cannot be seen

This is the statement that caused the current "Wild West" of RSE and PHSE providers

Chief Inspector of @Ofstednews Amanda Spielman said she warned the Government that RSE guidance places no limit on what can be taught but said that Ofsted was currently powerless to sanction schools teaching inappropriate material. telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/03/0…

Government response to the House of Commons Education Committee report ‘Life Lessons: PSHE and SRE in schools’ published in July 2015. A full public inquiry is needed into how the DfE's actions have caused the current safeguarding disaster in schools.
assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/upl….

Our news bulletin from 2015 with details of the Education Committee session familyeducationtrust.org.uk/bulletin-157-n…