NSS warns against allowing the promotion of religious views in RSHE

Posted: Thu, 11th Jul 2024

Government guidance for including same-sex relationships has also been "weakened", NSS says.

Eleni Vasiliou via Shutterstock

The National Secular Society has warned new guidance on Relationships, Sex, and Health Education (RSHE) will continue to enable the spread of stigmatising religious ideas about LGBT people, women, and reproductive health.

Responding to a government consultation on the draft guidance, the NSS said the requirement that "pupils should understand the importance of equality and respect" is incompatible with permitting schools with a religious character to "teach their distinctive faith perspective on relationships".

NSS research from 2018 found many faith schools explicitly teaching that same-sex relationships are wrong and criticising sex outside of marriage. Some were also found condemning contraceptives and abortion, encouraging taboos around menstruation, and stigmatising same-sex relationships by teaching about them primarily through education about HIV/AIDs.

The NSS said that respect and understanding "cannot be fostered" for children who are themselves LGBT or who have LGBT parents whilst religious perspectives can be promoted as part of RSHE. It called for allowances for faith schools to do so to be removed from the guidance.

The NSS said the guidance around LGBT inclusion had been "weakened". The requirement that schools "ensure that the needs of all pupils are appropriately met" in relation to LGBT has been dropped, thereby removing the impetus for schools to meet the needs of LGBT pupils, or pupils with LGBT parents.

Requirement to engage with "faith communities" dropped

The NSS welcomed the removal of the requirement for schools to engage "local faith communities", and that pupils' religious backgrounds "must be taken into account", when planning RSHE lessons.

The NSS has consistently advised the government to remove this requirement, which has contributed to several aggressive religious campaigns against schools, including Parkfield Community School and Anderton Park Primary School.

Parkfield, together with several other schools in Birmingham, suspended lessons about diversity amid objections from predominantly Muslim parents over references to LGBT people.

The NSS also warned new guidance giving primary schools "discretion" over whether to discuss "sexual orientation or families with same-sex parents" could invite further pressure from faith groups seeking to ensure schools do not teach about issues which go against their religious beliefs. It said schools could be forced to "capitulate by removing lessons designed to be inclusive of all kinds of families, including those with two mothers or two fathers".

Right of withdrawal

The guidance requires relationships education and sex education to be separated, so parents can withdraw their children from sex education if desired.

But the NSS argued the need to "strictly separate" relationships education from sex education to enable parental withdrawal "risks depriving children of knowledge that will keep them safe". The NSS repeated its call for the parental right to withdraw children from sex education to be removed.

Children "most in need of sex education" end up receiving the least, the NSS said, because children from conservative religious communities are most likely to be withdrawn, and also least likely to receive sufficient sex education at home.

This is a view shared by the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child, which said in its concluding observations on the UK last year that sex education should be provided "without the possibility for faith-based schools or parents to opt out of such education".

External groups

The NSS also called for increased scrutiny of external groups invited into schools, in order to address the documented targeting of schools by evangelical religious groups as vehicles to promote their beliefs.

Under the proposed guidance, schools would be responsible for checking the credentials and lesson plans of any visitor or visiting organisation involved in RSHE provision. But the NSS argued the same principle should apply to "all external organisations", not just those delivering RSHE.

NSS: 'No need for religious doctrine in lessons on sexual health'

NSS spokesperson Jack Rivington said: "Education on relationships and sexual health should be objective, comprehensive, inclusive and scientifically accurate. It should also be accessible to all children, irrespective of their parents' religious views.

"Allowing religious dogma to be taught within RSHE, together with the right of parental withdrawal, undermines these principles. The health and wellbeing of children and young people should be the prime concern, not the propagation or protection of religious ideology."

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Tags: Faith schools, LGBT, School evangelism, Women