Sex education ‘supports wellbeing and safeguarding of all students’

It confirmed local arrangements after concerns were raised in the UK about what sort of content students were being exposed to and a review of the classes.

Dave Stumpf, head of education inclusion services, said there was a highly qualified sexual health and relationships education team – known as Share – delivering relationship and sex education in schools.

Share delivers lessons from Year 5 upwards, starting with lessons on ways to stay safe and healthy, the importance of personal hygiene and an introduction to puberty.

‘We use anatomically correct language in these lessons as it is important for children to understand and use the correct language for their body parts but also important from a safeguarding perspective,’ he said.

‘In Year 6 pupils receive a gentle introduction to conception, foetal development, and birth.’

Most girls start having periods when they are 12 – which is about Year 7 – but they can start as early as eight years old – which is about Year 3.

A UK study of 3,000 young people found that a third of them had sex before they were 16, while most had intercourse by the time they were 18.

Mr Stumpf said the Share programme focused on respectful, healthy relationships and included learning about the emotional, social and physical aspects of growing up, relationships, sex, human sexuality and sexual health.

‘Share’s relationship and sex education programme supports the wellbeing and safeguarding of all our children and young people,’ he said.

‘It does not include learning about extreme sexual practices or fetishes.’

He said the RSE curriculum was designed to complement the role of parents and carers.

‘Parents and carers do have the right to withdraw their child from sex education, by writing to the school’s headteacher, however this is incredibly rare and has not to my knowledge happened for many years,’ he said.

‘In our experience the vast majority of parents want their children to receive a well-planned, age and stage appropriate relationship and sex education programme, delivered by trained professionals.’

RSE forms part of Guernsey’s wider Personal, Social, Health and Economic Education curriculum.

That curriculum is based on the programme of study from the PSHE Association in the UK.

It incorporates all of the content outlined in the Department of Education’s statutory relationships, sex and relationships and health education guidance, which became a legal requirement in the UK in September 2020.

‘Our PSHE programme also supports the States of Guernsey’s current Children and Young People’s Plan and the Education Strategy, which is committed to ensure that all our children and young people are included, respected and feel safe.’