Sex Education and Faith Schools

The NSS has responded to the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) consultation about guidance for teaching personal, social, health and economic education (PSHE) in schools.

We are particularly concerned about teaching of sex and relationships in faith schools. The guidance recognises the need to give young people fact-based information but it also recommends respecting the ethos of the school. In some schools, these two instructions could be in direct conflict. While some faith schools will teach the subject objectively, in others teaching may be biased by selective use of facts or it may be ‘morally’ loaded against casual sex and short-term relationships according to doctrine, leaving young people confused and unprepared to protect and discover themselves. They may be ill-informed or too embarrassed to buy contraceptives or to consult health-care professionals about STIs or pregnancy and may not know that what they have been told is inaccurate or partial until it is too late. They may also be unprepared, isolated and vulnerable to bullying if they discover they are gay.

Baroness Massey of Darwen tabled an amendment to the Academies Bill to take sex education lessons (PSHE) out of the control of school governors and to make them mandatory in all schools. It was defeated by 80 votes.