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

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 5:36 pm on 22 May 2018.

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Photo of Kirsty Williams Kirsty Williams Liberal Democrat 5:36, 22 May 2018

Can I thank Siân Gwenllian for her comments? I do want to make it clear that we're not in a situation where nothing is happening in our schools. There is some very good practice in our schools, as recognised by the report. The challenge, as always, in Welsh education—as I've discovered over the last two years—is how you make that consistent in all of our schools. So, I don't want people to think that none of this is happening at the moment. I see very good practice when I go around. What I want to see as a result of the changes I'm announcing today is that consistency across all settings, and a very strong emphasis and importance being placed upon this subject, by making it statutory in the new curriculum going forward, which wasn't the original plan two years ago.

If I may, Presiding Officer, Siân Gwenllian did pick up on a very important issue that hasn't been raised by anybody else today, and that's the issue around gender stereotyping and how devastating that can be and the implications that can have for children and for an entire lifetime. If you Google a well-known toy retailer on your computers today, you can actually click on age preference and gender preference. Gender preference—is there such a thing as a gendered toy? According to this well-known retailer, yes, you can put in a gender preference. If you click on the generic 'dressing up' section, guess what the girls are dressed in? Oh, yes, they're all fairies and princesses, and the boys are superheroes, policemen and firefighters. If you look at the picture for building and construction tools, guess what you see: boys with hammers and Lego. My goodness me, one would have hoped by now we'd have moved on from that. So, actually, being able to say to our children in our schools, 'You can be whatever you want to be' and 'You don't have to play with a certain type of toy'—these are the reasons why we need to make the changes we're making today. I'm grateful for Plaid Cymru's support for doing that.