6. Statement by the Cabinet Secretary for Education: Relationships and Sexuality Education

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 4:51 pm on 22 May 2018.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Darren Millar Darren Millar Conservative 4:51, 22 May 2018

Can I thank the Cabinet Secretary for her statement, and for foresight of it before it was made this afternoon? Can I also put on record my thanks to the chair of the expert panel for the work that she and her fellow panel members have done? Emma Renold, I think, has produced a very decent report that considers thoroughly many of the issues that relationships and sex education present.

You'll have to forgive me here, because I'm a bit of a prude when it comes to these matters, but I do think that some people will have some concerns about the fact that you are talking about the possibility of introducing issues into the classroom for five-year-olds that they may not be prepared for developmentally. I notice you made reference to the development of young children and making sure that there was appropriate sex and relationships education for them. But, clearly, children develop at different rates, and in different ways, and we must ensure that this sort of education can be flexible enough, even within the classroom, to be targeted at individuals and not just whole cohorts of young children.

I think that many people will want to protect the innocence of children and that parents will question how it's going to be possible to ensure that there is appropriate education, in a sensitive way, that also meets the requirements that faith groups might have, for example, where they may raise concerns about the breadth of the education, if you like, and the information that is being relayed. So, I wonder what guidance you will publish to go along with the new regime to make sure that those concerns can be addressed, while still maintaining a very high-quality input for children of all ages, and at all stages of their development, but which doesn't unnecessarily introduce young children in particular to things that clearly are inappropriate for them to be able to digest.

You made reference, I noticed, in your press release, which was issued yesterday under embargo, to the issue of online safety. I notice that you haven't referenced it in your statement today, but I know that you share my concerns about making sure that young people, particularly 'tweenagers', shall we call them, are properly prepared for the challenges that online social media in particular can present them with. I wonder whether you can just expand on the comments that you made in the media regarding the content that you expect to be delivered in respect of online safety in terms of relationships and sexuality education.

You've also said that you want this revolution in relationships and sexuality education to start immediately, and yet you've said that you've made £200,000 available in order to educate people. Well, it can't start immediately if they've not been educated in how to deliver these things first. So, can you just tell us how you expect things to be delivered immediately without equipping the teachers in the classroom with the skills, with the knowledge, with the expertise to be able to deliver this new set of educational standards in terms of relationships and education on sexuality? Because I think that, again, many people will be concerned that you're going to rush to roll this thing out, without it being fully considered in terms of the way that that is going to be implemented.

Can I also ask how you expect to monitor the implementation of this? You've quite rightly said that there are some excellent examples of schools that are getting this right and there are some very poor examples of schools that get it absolutely wrong. How do you expect to be able to monitor the way that schools are implementing the changes that you've proposed? Do you see a role for LEAs? Do you see a role for the regional consortia? Are Estyn expected to inspect against these new standards, and if so, how are they going to get a holistic picture across a whole school if you've said it's not going to be a fixed prescription, as it were, but that there's going to be some flexibility within it? So, perhaps, again, you could just touch on how you intend to do that to make sure that it's going to be handled in the proper way.

Just finally, obviously, for many children, the only example they have of relationships are those around them, either within the family or beyond the family, or those that are portrayed on the television or in the media. How is this going to fit in with other work that is being done by the Welsh Government on issues such as parenting and relationship support more widely? Clearly, that example in the home is going to have an even more profound impact than a teacher discussing this on an infrequent basis in a classroom. So, perhaps you could tell us how joined up this is across Government. Thank you.