The UK’s sex education standards, issued in 2000, are woefully out of date and fails to address the needs of today’s students, says the government’s own Office for Standards in Education (Ofstead).
In school audits of sex education curriculum by Ofstead found that 40% of the programs surveyed were “inadequate” or “needing improvement,” in their report, tellingly titled: “Not Yet Good Enough, Personal, Social Health and Economic Education in Schools.” The report states that in primary schools, too much emphasis is placed on friendships and relationships, leaving pupils ill-prepared for the physical and emotional changes of puberty. In secondary schools, too much emphasis is placed on the ‘mechanics’ of reproduction rather than on the importance of healthy sexual relationships.
The national sex education standards, developed in the 1990s, state that the teaching of sex education must be “age-appropriate,” however due to the sensitive nature of the topic, and the increasing sexualization of our society, in the 21st century, approaching sex education exclusively as a biology lesson, leaves students woefully unprepared for this modern age.
The National Curriculum covers some basic sex education, such as puberty and reproduction in primary science and the menstrual cycle and reproductive system in secondary science, state secondary schools have to provide sex education, the only topic they must cover by law is HIV, AIDS and other sexually transmitted infections.
With pornography in wide circulation and often easily accessible by students, educating them more comprehensively in all aspects of sex and sexual relationships, as well as the concept of sexual consent and providing students with the education necessary to recognize and report inappropriate sexual behaviours, sexual exploitation and domestic violence, as well as giving students the confidence to say “No.”
Ofstead also reported that a distressing number of teachers had received “little or no training to teach sex education. Teaching was not good in any of these schools.” The report further stated: “Too many teachers lacked expertise in teaching sensitive and controversial issues, which resulted in some topics such as sexuality, mental health and domestic violence being omitted from the curriculum,” and in schools that it ranked highly, “pupils learnt how to keep themselves safe in a variety of situations but not all had practiced negotiating risky situations or applied security settings to social-networking sites.”