In an interview with the JC, Damian Hinds says it would not be appropriate for schools to delay teaching about LGBT issues until sixth form age
July 15, 2019 15:48
The Education Secretary Damian Hinds has made it clear that Charedi schools reluctant to teach LGBT equality will be unlikely to be able to put it off till the sixth form.
While the government’s new relationships and sex education policy states children should be taught about LGBT relationships before they leave school, it allows school to decide the appropriate age to introduce the topic.
But in an interview with the JC, Mr Hinds has suggested that the flexibility in the policy will only go so far.
“I don’t think waiting until sixth form is the appropriate way to do that,” he said. “The age of [sexual] consent in 16 and that guides a number of things in the way we address these matters.”
Most Charedi schools do not have a sixth form, so being free to delay discussion of LGBT content until children are older would have let them off the hook.
The Department for Education’s guidance on relationships and sex education (RSE) had taken into account there were different communities with “somewhat different outlooks,” Mr Hinds explained.
“But that does not mean it is ok not to know about the society you are growing up in.”
There were, he said, “families with same-sex parents and children do need to know about the society they are growing up in. It’s both a reality and it is also a matter of law you can marry as a same-sex couple”.
Every child, he said, “needs to know that. And as you get older, going through teens, frankly of any religious denomination, there will be some children who are grappling with, coming to terms with thinking about their own identity, their own sexuality.
“And I think it is important for those children to be able to have a safe opportunity to cover it.”
But he said that he would enourage schools to deal with aspects of the subject "much earlier".
There was, he said, "a distinction between talking about relationships and sexuality. So when we talk about relationships education in primary school, it starts with taking turns, being kind to one another, looking out for other children in the playground.
"Then there are questions about the different families that individual children may come from. You might have in your junior school class a child who has same-sex parents. That's perfectly permissible within our society, within the law and it does happen. Then it would be appropriate to discuss that. But that is not the same thing as talking about sexuality."
The question of teaching children about same-sex couples has become increasingly fraught, following protests outside a number of state primary schools in recent months, mostly by Muslim parents.
Earlier this month, a group of 50 MPs signed a letter - instigated by Labour MPs Emma Hardy and Jack Dromey - urging Mr Hinds to make teaching about families with same-sex parents compulsory for primary schools.
A Panorama programme about the controversy is due to air on BBC1 on Monday evening. The programme quotes Judith Nemeth - who runs the newly created Values Foundation and is a former head of the now defunct National Association of Orthodox Jewish Schools - saying, "There's no way that people of faith will teach it's ok to be gay. They won't because the Bible tells us it isn't ok to be gay.”
“But that doesn't mean that we are intolerant of people who do follow that lifestyle,” she added. “Nobody's being judgmental here, nobody's being homophobic."
When it was put to Mr Hinds that some parents believed it was for them, not schools, to discuss issues of sexuality, he defended the new RSE policy.
“The question is not whether children are going to hear about LGBT matters, or other matters of sexuality, the question is how and when they are going to hear about them,” he told the JC.
“Would you rather than happens in the playground, or increasingly on the internet, stumbling across material which may not be presented in the way that any of us would want it to be presented, or it is it better to cover it in class with a teacher?”
Asked about schools that felt unable to talk about LGBT people, he said, “We do expect schools to comply with the law… We want to work with schools to help them do that.”
Mr Hinds also indicated that the government would be looking how to bring unregistered yeshivot - in which many boys in Hackney are educated - under closer state scrutiny. They are currently exempt from Ofsted inspection.
“At the moment, covering only religious content in a religious setting, you don’t count as a school,” he said.
“But I think it is reasonable to say that if you are open during normal school hours, and you are educating children of school age, and there isn’t the opportunity of going to another school as well consistent with that, to most people that’s a school.
“I don’t have immediate legislation to unveil today, but we will come back to that matter.”
