The secret sex lessons taking place in Scottish schools

HOW EARLY IS TOO EARLY? It is a question thousands of Scottish parents are now asking as more emerges about Relationships, Sexual Health and Parenthood (RSHP) lessons in our schools.

Materials that I was able to obtain from a teacher within my local authority show Primary 1 (aged four to five) pupils required to learn vocabulary such as nipples, penis, scrotum, testicles and vulva – this is guidance teachers must follow.

By the time they reach Primary 5 (aged eight to nine) the required vocabulary has expanded to include foreskin, cervix, clitoris, labia and vagina. Skills these pupils are expected to learn include naming these parts of the body, talking about them in group settings, and being tasked with listening to descriptions of the changes that take place during puberty including “erections, wet dreams, pubic hair, masturbation”.

Most mums and dads support sensible, age-appropriate teaching about safety, respect and healthy relationships. Nobody serious wants children left ignorant about boundaries or wellbeing.

But that is not where the row now lies.

The real concern is that too many parents still have little idea what is being taught, when it is being introduced and how explicit or misrepresented some material may be. Lessons appear behind a wall of jargon, policy language and official reassurance. By the time families discover what has been discussed, the child has already brought it home.

That is not transparency. It is contempt for parents.

Unsurprisingly, my nine-year-old came home after these lessons with stories about “wanking” – not just with the teacher in class, but obviously among children in the playground too.

Anecdotal evidence – reliable statistics are hard to come by – suggests sexualised bullying and pupil-to-pupil sexual assaults in primary schools are not uncommon.

There is a clear line between protective education and premature sexualisation

Let us be honest. If an unrelated adult outside school exposed children to sexual discussions, intimate advice or explicit imagery before they were emotionally ready, there would be outrage. Safeguarding alarms would ring immediately.

Yet place the same content in a classroom, give it a glossy title and call it education, and suddenly parents are expected to keep quiet.

Why?

Schools should educate children, not smuggle controversial material past families under the guise of bureaucracy, education or safeguarding awareness.

There is a clear line between protective education and premature sexualisation. The Scottish Government seems increasingly unable – or unwilling – to recognise it.

Young children need innocence, security and gradual development. They need time to grow up naturally. They do not need adult concepts pushed on them before they can properly understand them.

Too much, too soon does not automatically empower children. It can confuse them, unsettle them and damage their ability to establish relationships; it can also erode trust between schools and parents.

And what of families whose faith teaches modesty and caution around these issues?

Christian, Muslim, Hindu and many other parents may reasonably believe intimate matters should be introduced gradually within the family, in line with their values. Yet those same families can find their children exposed to topics they would never have chosen at that age.

In modern Scotland, diversity is celebrated loudly – until parents from religious backgrounds ask for boundaries.

Parents are also quietly but increasingly worried about what older pupils bring home. Secondary school material does not stay in secondary school. It filters down to younger siblings through playground chat, family homes and social media.

The difference now is that it comes stamped with authority.

Children have always swapped rumours and half-truths. But when information is passed down from senior pupils who say, “We learned this at school”, it carries the weight of fact and official endorsement.

children are being introduced to stereotypes

There is another uncomfortable issue too. Some messaging increasingly seems based on the presumption that boys are future perpetrators and girls are automatic victims.

Of course, children should be taught respect, consent and personal responsibility. Schools should teach mutual respect generally rather than ideological suspicion.

Through RSHP, children are being introduced to stereotypes, whilst, in the same breath, being told they don’t have to become those stereotypes. If that is the case, why introduce those ideas in the first place?

Confused? This whole aspect of the curriculum is confusing adults and teachers. Imagine, then, how children are feeling.

The solution is simple. End the current delivery model.

Instead, parents should be offered full transparency, with every RSHP resource made available, and then invited to assemblies where votes can be held on whether the content should be delivered.

Parents should be involved in this discussion and should have their votes counted. This should be a show of hands in the room and feedback to the authorities. It is not complicated.

Families must have meaningful opt-out rights where appropriate. This should not be an opt-out by default, rather more of an opt-in after these proposed information assemblies.

Scotland’s parents are not extremists for asking questions. They are not bigots for wanting boundaries. They are not backward for believing childhood or sexuality should be protected and private.

They are mothers and fathers doing what parents are supposed to do.

The SNP government and education chiefs should start listening. More families are concluding that the classroom is being used for social experiments that nobody voted for.