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Government presses ahead with sex education plans without consulting parents
The government is pressing ahead with plans to make sex education a statutory part of the curriculum in both primary and secondary schools without making any attempt to seek the views of parents. Having accepted the recommendation of the sex and relationship education (SRE) review group to make Personal Social and Health Education (PSHE), including SRE, statutory, the government is now proceeding with unseemly haste to decide how to implement its controversial proposal.
Ministers have now set up an independent review chaired by London headmaster, Sir Alasdair Macdonald, to consider ‘the most effective ways of making PSHE statutory’ and ‘the best ways to provide a statutory entitlement to PSHE education for all pupils’. Sir Alasdair’s review got under way very quietly in mid-November when 80 ‘key stakeholders’, including Family Education Trust, received an email from the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) inviting their input.
Departmental officials initially declined to disclose the list of stakeholders, but reluctantly consented after the Trust put it to them that the widespread public concern at the government's repeated and consistent exclusion of parents from its deliberations would only grow if the DCSF were now refusing to publish a list of consultees. The consultees, who did not include many of the individuals and groups who had gone out of their way to make a submission to the SRE review group, were given just three weeks to respond to 11 questions, including:
- How can the rights of parents to withdraw their children from parts of sex and relationships education be balanced with the rights of young people to have access to PSHE provision that meets their needs?
- Given the current demands of the curriculum, how can statutory PSHE education best be accommodated?
- What are the major barriers to successful implementation of statutory PSHE education, and how might these be overcome?
- What scope is there for extra-curricular activity to contribute to PSHE education?
Parents excluded
Given the make-up of the government’s review group (see Bulletin 131), the recommendation to impose sex and relationship education upon schools came as no great surprise. What is alarming, however, is the government’s readiness to support such a far-reaching recommendation without any public consultation.
Parents have been excluded from the entire review process. There was no parental representation on the government’s steering group, parental input was not sought at any point, and ministers have repeatedly refused to meet with representatives from Family Education Trust and other organisations representing the views and concerns of a large proportion of parents.
Prior to October, government ministers had consistently stated that that they had no plans to make PSHE statutory, and the status of PSHE was not even included within the remit of the review group. They had also insisted that they would consider the future position of PSHE in the light of the findings of the Primary Curriculum Review, which is still ongoing. Even more importantly, the Schools Minister had given concerned pro-family groups an assurance that there would be a full public consultation on any substantive recommendations made by the review group before any decisions were taken (see ‘How the government has gone back on its word’ below).
Absence of evidence
In making his announcement that sex and relationship education is to become compulsory in schools from the age of five, Jim Knight, the Schools Minister, asserted that it would help reduce rates of teenage pregnancy and sexually transmitted infection. Fine words, but without any supporting evidence.
Sex education has been widespread in secondary schools for decades, and it has never been easier for teenagers to obtain contraception without their parents knowing, yet the UK still has the highest rate of teenage conceptions in Western Europe, and both abortion rates and sexually transmitted infection rates have continued to rise. There is no evidence that starting sex education in primary school will produce results that secondary school sex education has failed to deliver.
Surprisingly little research has been conducted to evaluate the success of sex education programmes. As the government’s own review group noted in its report, there is a dearth of good quality international evidence on the subject. A literature review of what little research exists reveals that it is difficult to be precise about the impact of sex and relationship education because of a lack of clarity as to its objectives and the fact that there is significant variation in the delivery of programmes between and within different countries.
Primary school sex education
The sex education lobby invariably tries to play down the content of primary school lessons. They say it amounts to little more than teaching children the names for parts of the body. But parents talk to their children about their bodies when they wash and dress them from their earliest days and are well able to decide whether to use the proper biological terms or pet names for their private parts.
It is equally spurious to defend compulsory sex education on the basis that young children need to learn that their relationship with their parents is different from their relationship with their grandparents, which in turn is different from their relationship to their siblings, their friends, their neighbours and their teachers. Children already learn about different types of relationships in the context of everyday life. There is no need to formalise and professionalise such things by adding them to an already overloaded curriculum.
Introducing sex education at an early age runs the risk of breaking down children’s natural sense of reserve. Far from being a hindrance, children’s natural inhibitions and sense of modesty in talking about sexual matters are healthy and provide a necessary safeguard against casual attitudes towards sexual intimacy later on. Rather than seeking to break down children’s natural sense of reserve, parents and teachers would do far better to discuss the self-giving and self-sacrifice that are the hallmarks of true love and to model them in their own lives.
Parental right of withdrawal
The government has yet to decide whether parents will retain the right to withdraw their children from sex and relationship education classes that they are uncomfortable with. This is among the issues currently being considered by Sir Alasdair Macdonald’s review. The government’s current official line is that the right of withdrawal is likely to remain. Jim Knight has stated:
I think it's important for individual parents' views to be taken into account in some of these sensitive areas and their right to withdraw from parts of education in those areas that they do not feel comply with their moral views and beliefs and that they will be better dealing with in the home. That would be something that would take us a lot of persuading to move away from.1
However, rhetoric about the importance of parents will continue to sound very hollow until the government starts showing them proper respect and makes an effort to listen to their concerns. There is no question that ministers will be under considerable pressure from the sex education lobby and others to remove the parental right of withdrawal. For example, Chris Keates, general secretary of the NASUWT teaching union suggested that:
Placing a statutory requirement on schools will be rendered meaningless if every parent has the right to withdraw their child from sex and relationships classes. If it is important enough to be statutory then it is important enough for every child to receive it.2
In its submission to Sir Alasdair Macdonald’s review, Family Education Trust reasoned that:
Parents are the best judges of the needs of their children. It is not for central or local government or any ‘expert group’ to determine what all children ‘need’ in such a sensitive and controversial area as the delivery of sex and relationship education…
It is of paramount importance that parents retain the right to withdraw their children from SRE classes. Parents are responsible for the moral and spiritual education of their children and if they judge that the SRE provision in their child’s school is incompatible with their own religious and philosophical convictions, their views must be respected.
A petition has been added to the Number 10 website calling on the Prime Minister to conduct a 12 week public consultation on whether or not to make sex and relationship education a statutory requirement for children of five years old and over, expressing regret that this did not take place before the decision was announced by Jim Knight on 23 October. Please sign the petition at: http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/Parentchoice/
Notes
1. Independent, 24 October 2008
2. NASUWT press release, 23 October 2008
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How the government has gone back on its word
In announcing that Personal, Social and Health Education (PSHE) is to be made statutory, the government has gone back on two firm commitments it made during the summer.
1. The Primary Curriculum Review
In the course of a debate on an amendment to the Education and Skills Bill aimed at making PSHE a statutory subject, Lord Adonis stressed that the future status of PSHE would be considered in the light of the Primary Curriculum Review. He stated:
The review of the primary curriculum…has a specific remit to consider how to develop an integrated framework for the personal skills that all pupils should develop through their schooling. Good PSHE is essential to this process. There are also ongoing reviews of drugs education and sex and relationships education. We will consider all three reviews when they report and the future position of PSHE in the curriculum in the light of them.1
While the reviews of drugs education and sex and relationships education (SRE) reported in October 2008, the Primary Curriculum Review is not due to report until Spring 2009. In his interim report on the Primary Curriculum Review, published in early December, Sir Jim Rose wrote that his review will now be ‘taking into account the work Sir Alasdair Macdonald is undertaking to make PSHE compulsory’. This represents a complete reversal of the commitment made by Lord Adonis.
2. The commitment to consult
The Schools Minister, Jim Knight, made a written commitment to give members of the public an opportunity to express their views on SRE before any major decisions were taken. In a letter dated 24 July declining a meeting with representatives of groups with a different perspective from the organisatons represented on the SRE review group, Mr Knight gave a written assurance that there would be ‘a full public consultation on any substantive recommendations made by the steering group’.
Officials at the Department for Children, Schools and Families accept that the decision to make PSHE statutory is a ‘substantive recommendation’ and that the Minister has not adhered to his promise. In his defence, they have suggested that Mr Knight had not appreciated the force with which the recommendation would be made by the review group when he had made his earlier commitment to consult.
However, given the make-up of the review group and the concerted campaign waged by many of the organisations represented on it throughout the review period, it is doubtful that the recommendation will have come as any surprise. But there is no justification for allowing the strength of feeling among review group members to negate a firm commitment to consult on ‘any substantive recommendations’. In any case, the issue of the status of PSHE was outside the review group’s remit.
Education law upholds the general principle that pupils should be educated in accordance with the wishes of their parents. It is therefore unacceptable for the government to impose statutory PSHE on all schools without seeking the views of parents. The decision to make PSHE statutory also runs contrary to the government’s general policy of giving schools more control over what is taught. In response to a Parliamentary Question on the extent to which the curriculum taught in publicly-funded schools should be determined centrally, the Minister stated that: ‘Recent curriculum developments have been aimed at reducing the statutory core and allowing schools even more autonomy to organise their curriculum.’ 2
Family Education Trust is continuing to call on the government to honour ministerial commitments and put its plans on hold until after the Primary Curriculum Review has reported and after there has been a full public consultation on whether PSHE should be made statutory.
Notes
1. HL Hansard, 21 July 2008, col 1552
2. HC Hansard, 3 November 2008, col 185W
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How the sex and relationship education review group marginalised parents
Data obtained by Family Education Trust under the Freedom of Information Act reveals that the government-appointed review group on sex and relationship education (SRE) made no attempt to consult parents about what should be taught and when. While the review group sought the views of young people and teachers first-hand, it did not commission any survey of parental concerns.
Young people and teachers
The Sex Education Forum, in conjunction with the UK Youth Parliament, was commissioned to undertake an online survey to elicit views from young people on what should be covered in SRE at each key stage. This was followed by a two day in-depth consultation with 15 young people looking at how SRE can be improved and ‘why young people need SRE’.
Similarly, the review group commissioned the Sex Education Forum, in conjunction with the PSHE Subject Association, to conduct an online survey to obtain the views of both primary and secondary school teachers on ‘what inhibits better delivery of SRE’.
…but not parents
However, no similar survey was undertaken to seek the views of parents. Instead, the review group invited two of its members to give a presentation based on previous research and personal experience. Professor Roger Ingham from the Centre for Sexual Health Research at the University of Southampton was asked to undertake a review of existing studies of parents’ attitudes to school SRE, and David Kesterton, the manager of the fpa’s ‘Speakeasy’ programme, was asked to report on the key issues parents found it difficult to talk to children about.
Professor Ingham is well known for his opposition to any approach that encourages young people to save sex for marriage. He is fully supportive of initiatives that are ‘non-judgmental and respectful of confidentiality’, believing that young people should not be denied ‘the opportunity to form relationships and express their feelings safely in ways they choose to’.1
Likewise, it is difficult to have confidence that David Kesterton would be in a position to represent the concerns of thousands of ordinary parents, given the fpa’s view that it is ‘paternalistic’ to hold that parents are best placed to judge what is in the best interests of their children.
The data released under the Freedom of Information Act also revealed that the review group considered five ‘options’ papers covering the training of teachers, involving outside agencies, providing guidance and support materials, using wider government programmes to improve SRE, and ensuring the involvement of young people in the design of their school’s SRE programme.
But apart from one brief reference in the paper on guidance and support materials, parents were again conspicuous by their absence.
Note
1. BMJ, 2000 December 16; 321(7275): 1520–1522
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Sex Education or Indoctrination? now available in Romanian
Valerie Riches’ book, Sex Education or Indoctrination? has recently been translated into Romanian. The project is the initiative of the pro-life organisation, Asociatia Provita Media, in Bucharest.
This will further extend the usefulness of this important publication, which remains in demand in the UK as concern grows among parents about the government’s proposals to impose sex and relationship education from the beginning of primary school.
Copies of the English edition of Sex Education or Indoctrination? are available from the FYC office priced at £5.00 (inc p&p).
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Why abortion?
The fpa (formerly the Family Planning Association) has released a new DVD aimed at young people aged 14 and over which presents abortion as a positive solution to an unwanted pregnancy. Entitled Why abortion? Understanding why women choose to have an abortion, the DVD shows a range of scenarios in which actresses justify abortion on the grounds that they cannot afford to have a child or that it could jeopardise their relationship with parents or boyfriends. Their choices are then debated in the video by a group of teenagers from Northern Ireland - where abortion remains illegal – with the majority defending women’s right to choose.
Family Education Trust director, Norman Wells, commented:
In trying to fix the parameters of discussion about abortion so that it excludes any ethical dimension and is taught in a moral vacuum, the fpa is being dishonest with young people. They are not doing women any favours by pretending that abortion is a simple and safe procedure that rarely leads to lasting trauma.
A casual attitude towards abortion is the inevitable fruit of a society that has made an idol of sexual pleasure and failed to respect its proper place and purpose in the context of a lifelong marriage.
The truth is that every abortion involves a personal tragedy for a mother and a child, which will have lasting consequences, whether immediately felt or not. The fpa is being extremely naïve and short-sighted to present abortion as a positive way of dealing with an unwanted pregnancy.1
Writing in the Independent, Ann Furedi, the chief executive of the British Pregnancy Advisory Service, stated:
For me the question is not: ‘When does human life begin?’, because I think we can accept the embryo is a human life of sorts. For me the question is: ‘When does human life really begin to matter?’ And that is something which can be relative to the woman who is carrying it.2
The value of human life
Ann Furedi’s argument demonstrates the futility of relativistic reasoning. In her view, human life does not have any absolute, objective and intrinsic value. Rather, the value of human life is a subjective matter to be determined by others, in this case by the mother. But it is simply not logical to say that the life of an unborn child is invested with value for the woman who wants her baby, while it has no value at all for the woman who does not want to be a mother.
Either the life of an unborn child is of value or it is not, irrespective of what any given individual may think. To take the view that human life may be protected or discarded according to the wishes of the mother is to reduce the child to the level of a commodity or personal possession that may be kept or thrown away depending on the value accorded to it by its owner.
Notes
1. Daily Telegraph,26 November 2008
2. Independent, 17 November 2008
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Why the family matters
An extract from an article by Shaun Bailey that appeared in the Sunday Times, 20 July 2008
“We live in a country that for the past 10 years has tried hard to replace families with the state, parents with rules and fathers with the benefit system. The government’s concentration on children as opposed to family and the onslaught against marriage by the liberal intelligentsia has led to a change in the relationship between parent, child and state.
“All the government’s proposals for young people involve putting more professionals in their lives rather than encouraging them to spend more meaningful time with their families. Many parents feel they have been robbed of the right to guide and discipline their children…
“Fatherhood as an institution has been downgraded everywhere; fathers are treated as an optional extra rather than a necessity… Much of the knife crime that we are suffering is based on the misconception that young boys have of what it is to be a successful man. When there is no positive masculine presence in a young boy’s life he becomes exposed to the negative messages in popular culture. Much of the amoral sexual behaviour of girls is directly linked to the lack of exposure to a meaningful and nonsexual relationship with a man. This leads to them mistaking sexual advances for genuine affection. There are some problems for our young people that fathers are best placed to answer.”
Shaun Bailey is a youth worker and co-founder of My Generation, a charity that aims to address social and economic problems that affect young people and their families.
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New health education leaflet
Following the success of the health education leaflet, HPV and You, Family Education Trust has recently released a new title in its series of ‘STI Alerts’.
The new leaflet, Chlamydia and You, focuses on the most common bacterial sexually transmitted infection in the UK. Intended for use in GPs’ surgeries and sexual health clinics, Chlamydia and You notes that:
Chlamydia is the torpedo of the STI world. It travels undetected and silently and is often only noticed when it causes major and sometimes irreversible damage.
In keeping with the purpose of the series to communicate the message that sexual promiscuity can have serious health consequences and that confining sexual intimacy to a mutually faithful, lifelong relationship (i.e. marriage), is the surest way of eliminating the risk of STIs, the leaflet concludes:
[As] with most other STIs, the only sure way to prevent infection is to save sex until you are in a faithful lifelong relationship with an uninfected partner’.
Copies of Chlamydia and You are available from the Family Education Trust office, priced at £2.25 (10 copies); £4.00 (25 copies); £7.00 (50 copies); £13.00 (100 copies). Prices include p&p.
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Families in Britain: the evidence
(But does the government want to know?)
The government has acknowledged that marriage is associated with greater stability, higher life satisfaction and better outcomes for children than other types of relationship. However, in its desire to celebrate a diversity of family forms, it is stubbornly refusing to allow the evidence to shape the direction of public policy.
In a 110-page ‘evidence paper’ on Families in Britain, the Cabinet Office and the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) reflects on recent changes in family composition and considers the outcomes of different family types. The evidence overwhelmingly demonstrates that marriage is associated with successful outcomes, while lone parenthood is associated with less successful outcomes (see box below). Yet having outlined the facts of the matter, the paper proceeds to suggest that the better outcomes associated with marriage have nothing to do with family structure, but are rather due to ‘quality of relationships’. The report states:
Increased pluralism of family structures need not lead to poorer outcomes, since evidence suggests that the quality of relationships and families’ circumstances have a greater effect on outcomes than the legal structure of a family.
Beverley Hughes and Liam Byrne make a similar claim in their ministerial foreword:
Warm, loving and stable relationships matter more for our happiness and wellbeing than the legal form of a relationship… All types of family can, in the right circumstances, look after their family members, help them get on in life and, for their children, have high hopes and the wherewithal to put them on the path to success.
Ignoring the link
It does not appear to have occurred to the government that there is a strong link between family structure and healthy relationship stability. Couples who have made a public commitment to love and support each other for life are far more likely to stay together and thus provide a stable and secure environment for their children which in turn results in positive outcomes.
In his weekly newsletter Dave Percival of 2-in-2-1 aptly commented:
If I produced for you a policy discussion paper on boats, and explained that those which stayed afloat were those which had intact hulls, and those which sank were those with holes in the hull, and then went on to say that it’s nothing to do with their hulls as such, but the extent to which they took on water which made them sink, you’d probably quietly question my logic (and sanity).
The evidence simply does not allow us to say that the positive outcomes associated with marriage have nothing to do with family structure. However, an ideological commitment to the mantra that marital status is of no consequence has prevented the report’s authors from pursuing the evidence they cite to its logical conclusion. As Melanie Phillips observed:
It’s one thing to deny the evidence. But it’s quite another finally to acknowledge the evidence - and then to deny its inescapable implications… The quality of the relationship depends upon its legal form - because it is more likely to be inadequate, abusive and break down altogether if it is anything other than marriage. (Daily Mail, 22.12.08)
Following the evidence through
The Families in Britain report states:
As Government we should be concerned about family change only if those changes affect outcomes – not because of change per se.
That being the case, the government has every reason to be concerned, because its own evidence demonstrates that the increase in cohabiting relationships and out-of-wedlock births, and the growth of lone-parent families and step-families are having an adverse effect on outcomes for children, families and society.
The fact that this report has acknowledged and accepted the evidence marks a significant step forward. What we now need is for the government to follow the evidence through and allow it to start shaping public policy.
Families in Britain: An evidence paper (Cabinet Office and DCSF, December 2008) http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/media/111945/families_in_britain.pdf
Marriage is associated with successful outcomes |
Lone parenthood is associated with less successful outcomes |
|
|
YET… the paper concludes that: ‘Generally, evidence suggests that the quality of relationships matters most regardless of the legal form.’ |
YET… the paper concludes that: ‘The evidence…suggests that it is not being a lone parent itself that is problematic but rather the relationship problems that led to breakdown and the financial consequences that often follow.’ Source: Families in Britain, pp85-86 |
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The child care transition: ‘a gamble with today’s children and tomorrow’s world’
A Unicef report on early childhood education and care raises serious questions about the policies being pursued by national governments in economically advanced countries. Entitled The Child Care Transition, the study observes that:
After centuries of being a predominantly private, family affair, the care of very young children is now becoming, in significant degree, an out-of-home activity in which governments and private enterprise are increasingly involved. Today’s rising generation in the countries of the OECDis the first in which a majority are spending a large part of their early childhoods not in their own homes with their own families but in some form of child care.
The report refers to the development as a largely unplanned and unmonitored ‘revolution’ and describes it as ‘a highstakes gamble with today’s children and tomorrow’s world’. While the report’s authors consider that the trend towards early childhood education and care has potential for good, they also recognise that it has the potential for both immediate and long-term harm. The report warns:
In some instances, and for some children, the long-term effects may include depression, withdrawal, inability to concentrate, and other forms of mental ill health. In a larger number of less obvious cases, the result is likely to be less than optimal cognitive and linguistic development and underachievement in school.
Concern has also been expressed about whether child care may weaken the attachment between parent and child, and whether it may not be putting at risk the child’s developing sense of security and trust in others. Doubts have also been raised about possible long-term effects on psychological and social development, and about whether the rise of child care may be associated with a rise in behavioural problems in school-age children.
Citing the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development study, the report notes:
The more time children spent in child care from birth to age four-and-a-half, the more adults tended to rate them…as less likely to get along with others, as more assertive, as disobedient and as aggressive.
Neuroscience
The Child Care Transition gives particular attention to the recent findings of neuroscience:
[N]euroscience is beginning to confirm and explain the inner workings of what social science and common experience have long maintained – that loving, stable, secure, stimulating and rewarding relationships with family and caregivers in the earliest months and years of life are critical for almost all aspects of a child’s development…
[T]he relationship between infants and parents or primary caregivers is critical to the child’s emotional, psychological and cognitive development. Developmental and behavioural problems – often continuing into later life – most commonly arise from disturbances in that relationship.
Four main drivers behind the expansion of the child care industry are identified:
- more than two thirds of all women of working age in the OECD countries are today employed outside the home;
- economic pressures on governments: more women in the workforce boosts GDP, increases income from taxes, and reduces welfare costs;
- an increasingly competitive, knowledge-based global economy is helping to convince both governments and parents that pre-school education is an investment in future academic success and employment prospects; and
- some OECD countries have come to see child care services as a prop to falling birth rates.
Yet, as the report notes, none of these drivers has anything to do with the best interests of children.
In an attempt to mitigate the potential damaging consequences of daycare, Unicef proposes the adoption of 10 benchmarks to serve as minimum standards for national governments. The focus here, however, is on extending paid parental leave, subsidising and regulating child care services and improving staff training and staff-to-children ratios, rather than seeking to halt the child care juggernaut.
Notwithstanding the weaknesses inherent in Unicef’s proposals which reflect a prior commitment to social engineering, it is refreshing to read a report that honestly faces up to the possibility that the expansion of child care facilities may prove a setback rather than an advance.
The UK’s daycare marketing machine
In the UK, the Prime Minister recently signalled his ambition to extend free nursery care to 2 year-olds, and the government presents the expansion of child care as an unmitigated good. In December, the Department for Children, Schools and Families issued a publication aimed at parents entitled, Affordable childcare: great for your kids, great for you. The leaflet, which is being mailed to parents along with details of their child benefit entitlement, extols the benefits of placing children in childcare outside the home, without the slightest hint that it may not be in the child’s best interests.
It gives the impression that with child care, everyone is a winner and that both parents and children benefit:
- Give your children a great start – And get a helping hand yourself!
- More fun for them – More options for you!
- Brilliant for them – Affordable for you!
- Free early learning for them – More time for you!
But behind the marketing rhetoric, the reality for growing numbers of children is that child care is not ‘brilliant’, and does not deliver ‘more fun’ or provide the promised ‘great start’. And it may not work to the long-term benefit of parents and communities either.
It is to be hoped that the Unicef report will provoke some sober thought at Westminster about the risks inherent in child care and lead to a reappraisal of policies aimed at separating children from their parents for large periods of the day from a very early age.
The child care transition: A league table of early childhood education and care in economically advanced countries, Unicef Innocenti Research Centre, Report Card 8, 2008
http://www.unicef-irc.org/publications/pdf/rc8_eng.pdf
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Redefining the family
Following the passing of the Human Fertilisation & Embryology Act 2008 in the autumn, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority is consulting on a draft code of practice intended to offer guidance to professionals who will be required to negotiate the legal complexities created by the controversial legislation.
The 345-page document devotes 18 pages to a discussion of ‘legal parenthood’, following changes to the meaning of the terms ‘mother’, ‘father’ and ‘parent’. Under the new legislation, the same-sex partner of the woman who carries the child can be classed as the legal ‘parent’ and have her name recorded on the birth certificate. In such cases, the draft code states, ‘no man is to be treated as the father of the child’.
Legal minefield
In his comment to the press, Family Education Trust director Norman Wells observed:
Whenever you legislate for something that runs contrary to nature, it is inevitable that you will find yourself having to redefine categories that ought to be self-evident and end up in a legal minefield.
In separating biological fatherhood from the legal responsibilities of being a father, we have legislated for a dangerous social experiment that has nothing to do with the welfare of children and everything to do with the desires of adults to subvert the natural order and redefine the family to suit themselves.
Just because we have the technology to do something doesn’t necessarily make it desirable or socially beneficial. If we really want children to have the best possible start in life, the last thing we should be doing is to deny any child something as fundamental as having a parent of each sex and to deprive them of the wider circle of their genetic relations.
Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, Code of Practice 8th edition (consultation draft), November 2008. http://www.hfea.gov.uk/en/1743.html Closing date for responses: 18 February 2009.
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21 Reasons why gender matters
Is gender fixed and static or fluid and changeable? Are there only two genders or many genders? Are gender roles interchangeable and is gender important to human relationships? In response to the growing confusion over gender, the Fatherhood Foundation in Australia has issued a report entitled, 21 Reasons why gender matters.
With contributions from over 30 academics and researchers, the fully-referenced document observes that:
There is an enormous and growing body of research, encompassing the fields of biochemistry, neurobiology, physiology and psychology, which all point to a clear conclusion: that there are profound differences between men and women. These go well beyond the obvious physical appearances and reproductive differences; men and women differ at many levels, and also approach relationships differently.
Drawing on a wealth of international research evidence, the authors spell out the importance of recognising gender differences and gender complementarity. They note, for example that:
- Gender uniqueness and complementarity means that each gender has a unique contribution to work, society and interpersonal communication that cannot be filled by the other gender in its entirety.
- Men and women are happier and healthier when they acknowledge and celebrate their respective gender differences.
- Marriage involving a man and a woman is the foundation of a successful family and the best way to protect children.
- Gender complementarity in a lifelong committed marriage between men and women is the best way to teach children the value of gender.
The report concludes with a series of policy proposals. The authors call for respect and compassion to be shown for those struggling with gender confusion and/or gender disorientation pathology, and stress the need to resist the efforts of ‘gender deconstructionists’ to redefine and thus undermine marriage and the natural family.
21 Reasons why gender matters http://www.gendermatters.org.au/
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‘Wellbeing’ – we are promoting it and have even legislated for it, but does anyone know what it means?
It is difficult to escape the term ‘wellbeing’ or ‘well-being’ in documents produced by the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF). ‘Wellbeing’ lies at the very heart of the department’s Every Child Matters initiative, and legislation has been passed placing local authorities under a legal obligation to improve the wellbeing of children in their area (Childcare Act 2006), and requiring the governing bodies of maintained schools to promote the wellbeing of pupils (Education and Inspections Act 2006).
The only problem is that the DCSF is having difficulty defining precisely what it means by wellbeing. In fact, so acute had its difficulty become last year that the department commissioned the Linguistic Landscapes consultancy to investigate the different ways in which the term was being used within the department.
The consultants found that while the term ‘wellbeing’ was ‘a feature of the everyday discourse of DCSF and beyond’, and while it featured strongly in policy and delivery documents, there was no agreement as to its meaning. The research report concluded that there is ‘significant ambiguity around the definition, usage and function of the word “wellbeing”, not only within DCSF but in the public policy realm, and in the wider world’. It added that ‘the meaning and function of a term like “wellbeing” not only changes through time, but is open to both overt and subtle dispute and contest’ and recommended that the DCSF adopt a ‘low key but deliberate strategy to manage [its] position within this ambiguity and instability’.
Gill Ereaut and Rebecca Whiting, What do we mean by ‘wellbeing’? And why might it matter? DCSF Research Report RW073, October 2008.
http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/rsgateway/DB/RRP/u015586/index.shtml
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ContactPoint prepares to go live
Following several delays, the Department for Children Schools and Families (DCSF) anticipates that ContactPoint, the information sharing database containing details of every child in England, will go live later this Spring. Basic data from the Department for Work and Pensions, the Department of Health, the General Register Office and the DCSF itself has already been loaded onto the system. Access is currently being given to a small number of people in each local authority so that they can shield the records of children who require shielding before access is granted to all authorised users.
The government estimates that around 390,000 professionals working in education, health, social care, child protection, youth justice and the voluntary sector will have access to the information contained on the system, though it suggests that the number could rise as high as 480,000.1
Serious security concerns remain about making data on over 11 million children available to so many people. At the end of October, the Information Commissioner, Richard Thomas, stated that the number of data breaches reported to his office had soared to 277 since Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs had lost 25 million child benefit records in November 2007. Mr Thomas observed:
As government, public, private and third sectors harness new technology to collect vast amounts of personal information, the risks of information being abused increases. It is time for the penny to drop. The more databases that are set up and the more information exchanged from one place to another, the greater the risk of things going wrong. The more you centralise data collection, the greater the risk of multiple records going missing or wrong decisions about real people being made. The more you lose the trust and confidence of customers and the public, the more your prosperity and standing will suffer. Put simply, holding huge collections of personal data brings significant risks.2
Notes
1. HC Hansard, 26 Nov 2008, col 1827W
2. Information Commissioner’s Office press release, 29 October 2008
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Government upholds parental use of reasonable physical chastisement
The government’s spokesman for Children, Schools and Families in the House of Lords has strongly upheld the freedom of parents to use a moderate physical sanction to correct their children’s behaviour.
Challenged by the Liberal Democrat peer, Baroness Walmsley, to outlaw all forms of physical chastisement in line with recommendations from bodies within the United Nations and the Council of Europe, Baroness Morgan of Drefelin declared:
We do not accept that…mild smacking—smacking for which the defence of reasonable punishment is available—constitutes violence. We firmly believe that our law is compliant with both the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) and the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). In our view, the UNCRC does not require the criminalisation of mild smacking. Conduct that could meet the threshold of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment under the ECHR is already illegal in this country.
Baroness Morgan went onto stress that it was not the role of government to criminalise parents who were doing the best for their children.
HL Hansard, 16 Oct 2008, cols 822-823
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Publications available from Family Education Trust
We have recently obtained copies of Hooked: New science on how casual sex is affecting our children, by Freda McKissic Bush and Joe S McIlhaney, which was reviewed in Family Bulletin 133. This hardback title presents in an accessible format the scientific evidence which demonstrates that keeping sex within a lifelong union between a husband and wife is the healthiest way to live – both physically and emotionally. We are able to supply copies for the special price of £10.00 (inc p&p).
Other recent titles available from the Trust include:
- The Fragmenting Family by Brenda Almond (reviewed in Family Bulletin 127), £10.00 (inc p&p)
- Questions Kids Ask About Sex edited by Melissa Cox (reviewed in Family Bulletin 129), £10.00 (inc p&p)
- The War Between the State and the Family, by Patricia Morgan (reviewed in Family Bulletin 129), £8.50 (inc p&p)
- Waking Up to the Morning-After Pill, by Norman Wells and Helena Hayward, £6.00 (inc p&p)
A full list of publications available from Family Education Trust is available upon request
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Annual General Meeting and Conference
The 2009 AGM and Conference of the Family Education Trust will be held on Saturday 13 June 2009 at the Royal Air Force Club, 128 Piccadilly, London W1, and we are delighted that Professor Dennis Hayes and Professor David Paton have agreed to address us during the afternoon session.
Professor Hayes is Visiting Professor in the Westminster Institute of Education at Oxford Brookes University. He will be speaking on the subject of the book he recently co-authored with Kathleen Ecclestone, The Dangerous Rise of Therapeutic Education.
Professor Paton is Professor of Industrial Economics at Nottingham University Business School. He has a special interest in the economics of teenage pregnancy and has had articles on the topic published in the Journal of Health Economics and in the Sex Education journal.
Further details will accompany the Spring bulletin. Please note the date in your diary now and plan to join with us if you are able.
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