Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 5:19 pm on 22 May 2018.
Thank you so much, Jenny. The example you gave of a nursery child becoming a sibling is a perfect example of developmental-appropriate education. From the very earliest stage, we're beginning to make relationships, aren't we, with our parents, with our siblings, with our community, and that's exactly what we need to be teaching our very youngest children about. It's about how you cope with that jealousy and what your role is within a family and how you treat your friends.
I think our Member opposite has fallen into the trap of seeing this in the way in which it's delivered at the moment. The reason why we've done the report—and what the report says—is that this education just focuses on biology, it focuses on sex in a biological way, it doesn't talk about all of these issues about what it means to be a human being and what it means to have relationships with a whole host of people, and that's why we need to develop the programme that we're doing.
And you're right; I spoke to some very eloquent primary school and secondary school pupils yesterday. They aren't embarrassed, they aren't a prude, as somebody described themselves. This is their life, and they are very confident and they're very happy in those instances to talk about it in a matter of fact way, not in a sitting-at-the-back-of-a-class giggly kind of way, but in a very mature kind of way, because they've been allowed to do that in the context of their school. They're much less het up about these things than maybe some people here in this Chamber are this afternoon.