On RSE, the time for parents to act is NOW

A few short weeks ago, we published a blog highlighting a parliamentary question that encouraged concerned parents regarding their rights of access to RSE materials proposed to be used in schools.  My, how the matter has progressed!

What we raised then was the challenge for parents to know what their children are being taught in schools, especially in the area of Relationships and Sex Education (RSE).  It’s too late, we’ve learned in recent days, to keep the enemy outside the gates – they are in, and the revelations of the images and ideologies that our children are being exposed to are shocking and distressing.

Thanks to the bold and persistent efforts of Miriam Cates MP, we now know from The New Social Covenant Report that vast amounts of the materials being used are undeniably inappropriate.  It is not exaggeration to state that they are pornographic, with children being asked to engage in learning applications that produce sexual material.  The Telegraph reported that that Prime Minister was so alarmed by ‘inappropriate’ sex education that the Department for Education (DfE) will review how sex education is taught in schools in England to ensure “schools are not teaching “contested content” in Relationships, Sex and Health Education (RSHE)”.  For anyone brave enough, the Report can be viewed here.

While we welcome a review of the content so rife with objectionable material, how can we have any real hope for positive change when the oversight is being done by the same government that paved the way for this very outcome, despite the manifold warnings and air of inevitability present when these RSE changes were announced in 2020?  This is the same government whose Minister, a month ago, Minister declared that “the Department believes the majority of schools use high quality, appropriate resources” and was content to treat it as basically a local matter.  This is the same government that set up the PSHE Association to oversee the training and resourcing for RSE delivery, whose flaccid response to this appalling crisis was, “Though problematic materials do exist — thankfully, they are in the minority, and it’s rarer still that these materials are used in practice”.  Those overseeing the implementation of this secularized sexualisation of children will not yield the ground they have seized, preferring a wilful blindness to what parents can plainly see.

Parents continue to have, according to law, primary responsibility for the education of their children, and those in State schools will have to attain a boldness and level of vigilance as never before.  Are Christian parents ready to approach schools, to challenge schools, to work with schools, to bring about the needed change?

CViE always encourages positive engagement with your children’s schools, and urges our supporters to, in a prayerful and constructive manner, insist upon viewing all RSE resources being used.  What these recent revelations make plain is that the matter is far more advanced than previously thought, and it will take determination to win back, if possible, ground already lost.

We can give thanks to God for raising up those in the public eye who challenge these matters on our behalf – let us pray for them as they suffer the fiery darts of a real and engaged enemy.