Skip to main content

Update on myMP opposing compulsory SRE

After getting a brush off answer to start with I'm starting to get better response from my MP about why he does not vote for teaching young people about Consent. 

This is just a short update on my previous post on my MP (Stephen Mosley) voting against Clause 20 which would have made SRE compulsory and explicitly made it clear we need to educate young people about Consent. 


This sentence is at least a genuine answer, he is claiming their was not sufficient evidence and reasons. Now immediately after reading his reply I wanted to push all the evidence I could find at him so he could realise how wrong he was and how right it would have been to vote Yes and if wants more evidence I can direct him to loads. When tweeting about this the Sex education Forum replied offering help.

The Sex education forum even has collected evidence on specifically why making it compulsory is a good idea http://www.sexeducationforum.org.uk/policy-campaigns/hands-up-for-sre.aspx. But instead of flooding him with the vast array of evidence I have chosen to give him the benefit of the doubt. Maybe he has read and understood lots of the evidence. Maybe he thinks the current evidence is lacking? Or maybe the key is in the term "sufficient reasons". So this is my reply. 


Dear Mr Mosley, 
Thank you for our second letter, it is a much clearer response to my question and I was happy to read a plain English answer. You do not believe their was "sufficient evidence and reasons" for Clause 20. Now I'm sure you can tell already from previous comment that I disagree. When I read your letter I was tempted to flood with you with a broad sweep of every drop of evidence I could find.
However, I am hopeful that you have read lots of the evidence put forward by the Sex Education Forum, Brook, National Association of Headteachers (NAHT) and Mumsnet. But you seem to believe this evidence is not sufficient. Therefore, I would like you to tell me what evidence would you require before you would vote yes to making SRE compulsory and give the issue of consent the same level of importance within the statutory curriculum as HIV has been given? What evidence do you need? Do you need more evidence of the damage of non consenting sexual activity? Or do you need more evidence of the effectiveness of school based SRE? Or do you need more evidence of the need to make it compulsory? Please help us to help you find the information you need. On the issue of "sufficient reasons" can you clarify what reasons are you looking for in decisions about what should be included in the national curriculum? 
Kind Regards
Gareth

P.S. I noticed in the letter you switched to the plural "We were therefore unconvinced". Can I ask was the vote of no decided as a group decision before you entered the debate? 


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

A RSE reading list

Sometimes people ask me what reading I recommend around RSE, so I thought I would put together a bit of a list.  Key (free) articles and reports  Young people’s RSE UK poll  Sex Education Forum (2018) RSE outcome variations due to facilitator differences  Young et al (2018) What do young people think about their school-based sex and relationship education? A qualitative synthesis of young people's views and experiences Pound et al. (2016) Review of sexual abuse in schools and college s Ofsted (2021) National and International RSE Guidance  UNESCO international guidance on RSE  UNESCO (2018) England   Department for Education full guidance on statutory relationships education, relationships and sex education (RSE) and health education  Department for Education (2019) Wales Curriculum for Wales guidance and code for Relationships and Sexuality Education (RSE)  (Consultation stage) Welsh Government (2021)  Scotland  Guidance for teac...

Creating a physical RSE resource - See It Shout It

I love making new relationships and sex education resources. " See It Shout It ", is the latest resource I have made to help young people grow in confidence to verbalise sex related words. I was asked how I choose the 31 icons that made the resource and I thought the creation process might be interesting to talk about.  Normally I create activities that can be shared digitally and then printed out or used with a projector. But sometimes I am involved in creating physical products. The process is similar for both but there are a few extra steps with making a physical product to be sold. The barriers to start making your own high quality resources is lower then ever and new creators can always bring a fresh perspective to a topic.  I have worked in the sex education field for over 15 years and this topic is what I know best but I'm sure that the same basic process can be applied to many different subjects. I am going to share the process I went through creating " See I...

Sources and reading from " 5 cool things AI can do for your youth work (and what's coming next)" workshop

Thank you if you came to my workshop at NYMW 2023 about how youth workers might consider using AI within their work. Obviously there is a lot of areas we could have looked at. We only scratched the surface, especially around the ethics. But with the current attention on generative AI I hope it was useful. Below I have included both a copy of my slides and links to some further reading/research about the topic.  Slides Download a .pdf of the slides here Edited further reading and research list Atlas of AI (2022) Crawford *. A good book about ethical aspects Automating Youth Work: youth workers views on AI (2023) Pawluczuk . EU study into the attitude of youthworkers towards AI Blood in the Machine (2023) Merchant *. Who were the Luddites and why did they hate new technology  Here's What Ethical AI Really Means (2023) Philosophy Tube . Long form video essay about the ethical aspects of AI, especially in regards to the creative arts   How AI chatbots like ChatGPT o...