3. Statement by the Minister for Education: Curriculum for Wales Framework

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 3:51 pm on 28 January 2020.

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Photo of Jenny Rathbone Jenny Rathbone Labour 3:51, 28 January 2020

Thank you. I completely endorse your approach to relationship and sexuality education, making it compulsory, because in the context of the most advantaged, least deprived secondary school in my constituency, these phones are a major problem. Because they have the police in every single week trying to explain to young people, if they're sharing compromising photographs on their phones, it is going to come back and bite them, either financially or they're going to be sexually exploited. Unless we can get everybody to understand that, we have a major problem.

We also know that it's absolutely vital that young people are given non-judgmental guidance on what positive relationships look like, so that the child who's being asked to do inappropriate things is empowered to say 'no' and knows where to go. I find it hypocritical that organisations that have failed to safeguard children and young people adequately from predatory adults are then at the forefront of saying that this should be left to parents. Equally, it's unacceptable that a child of nine has no idea why they're bleeding between the legs because nobody's bothered to tell them about monthly periods.

Equally, I feel that the humanists association has got the wrong end of the stick in saying that religious education as a core part of the curriculum is ramming religion down children's throats, because we have to deconstruct religious values and ethics into different areas of teaching and learning so that every child knows the history of religion, which after all has been the cause of more wars than practically anything else, and we continue to have wars fought over religion. So, we need to understand all that. And in a multicultural, multi-ethnic, multi-religious world, we're not going to get very far in teaching respect for difference if we can't ensure all young people understand that people have different beliefs, and ensure that we have core values and ethics, honesty, truthfulness, kindness and empathy.

Suzy Davies mentioned the lessons learned from the Holocaust. Well, Dr Martin Stern, who spoke at city hall yesterday, was really clear that what we have to learn from all these 50 genocides that have occurred since the second world war is an understanding that ordinary people can become monsters. He talked about his Bosnian friend who was interrogated by his former science teacher, who had made the transition from being a pedagogue to a murderer. So, all these things; it is vital that we are building up the core curriculum to ensure that we have a civilised society that everybody understands.