Questions Without Notice from Party Spokespeople

Part of 1. Questions to the Minister for Education and the Welsh Language – in the Senedd at 1:40 pm on 12 October 2022.

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Photo of Laura Anne Jones Laura Anne Jones Conservative 1:40, 12 October 2022

Diolch, Llywydd. Minister, I have always been supportive of the idea that sex education needed to be updated in Wales. It was archaic and needed changing, but in the right way. I find the already apparent failures that we're seeing to get RSE right quite upsetting. If things are not adapted, we will miss an opportunity here to genuinely make better sex education for children and young people across Wales. The good from the much-needed changes that we're seeing in sex education will be lost due to not ensuring age appropriateness of content and language when delivering such important messaging to our children and young people. As I heavily stressed to the former Minister, Kirsty Williams, who has three children of her own, the new content of what was being taught needed to—and she agreed—(a) use vocabulary that can be understood by the child/young person that's being taught, and (b), and most importantly, make sure that the content was not confusing and was age appropriate. We are one month into this new term and the official beginning of the new curriculum RSE being delivered, and it's abundantly clear from parents and teachers alike that some of the teaching materials that have been recommended are concerning to them. And they are most certainly not—a worrying number of materials recommended—age appropriate after all. As a mother to a 12 and three-year-old myself, I'm deeply concerned about what we're hearing—