Take Action!
In October 2008 the Government announced its intention to make Personal, Social, Health and Economic (PSHE) education statutory and launched a review to investigate how this might be achieved. The review was carried out by Sir Alasdair Macdonald, a Head Teacher at a secondary school in Tower Hamlets. His report was released on April 28th and recommended that PSHE education should become part of the National Curriculum, in both primary and secondary education. We welcomed this, as we have been calling for such a change for many years.
However, the report also recommended that governing bodies should retain the right to determine their school’s approach to the sexual and relationship education (SRE) aspect of PSHE, so that it can be ‘… delivered in line with the context, values and ethos of the school’. We are concerned this will mean that children in ‘faith’ schools may miss out on good quality SRE. We also oppose the recommendation that parents should be able to withdraw their children from SRE. We are concerned this will lead to children most in need of good SRE missing out on it.
We are asking our members and supporters to join us in taking action to ensure that all children will receive fair and balanced PSHE, including sex and relationships education.
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Go to humanists.uk/pshe to find out what you can do.
Read more about the BHA’s position on SRE.
Are you a teacher?
If so, and you would like to take further action on this issue please contact pepper@humanists.uk. We will then send you more information about how to respond to the public consultation.