JOHN SMEATON, DIRECTOR OF SPUC: Safe at School campaign to address Hounslow parents concerned about sex education in primary schools

Friday, 27 September 2013

Safe at School campaign to address Hounslow parents concerned about sex education in primary schools

Worried parents in Hounslow have invited Antonia Tully of SPUC's Safe at School campaign to talk to them about their rights as parents and how they can protect their children from explicit sex education.

Antonia told the media today:

"Parents have approached me because they are receiving confusing messages from both their children's schools and from the local authority. For example they are being told that sex education is a compulsory part of the science curriculum. This is not true. The current science curriculum does not specify that sex is to be taught to children, a point confirmed last year by former schools' minister Nick Gibb.

Schools are interpreting the national curriculum to include sex in science lessons. Parents are understandably concerned. Their rights to withdraw their children have been stripped from them. Parents are the primary educators of their children in sexual matters, not the school or the local authority."

Safe at School, a campaign of the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC) www.spuc.org.uk has welcomed the new national curriculum for science at key stages 1 and 2. This makes clear that children are not expected to identify genitalia or be taught about sexual intercourse in science lessons.

Antonia continued:

"I will be telling parents in Hounslow that they are the experts in their children's lives. Only a parent knows when a child is ready to hear about the intimate details of human sexuality. This should be done in the privacy of the child's home, not publicly in the classroom. I will be showing parents how explicit sex education materials sexualise their children."

The Safe at School meeting will take place on Tuesday 1 October, 7-9 pm at Wellington Day Centre, Staines Road, Hounslow, TW4 5BA.

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About Me

I became involved in SPUC after graduating, when I established a branch in south London in 1974. I have worked full-time for SPUC for 42 years. I became chief executive of SPUC in the UK in 1996, having been general secretary since 1978. I was elected vice-president of International Right to Life Federation in 2005. At UN conferences in Cairo, Copenhagen, Beijing, Istanbul and Rome, I helped coordinate more than 150 pro-life/pro-family groups resulting in pro-life victories in Cairo, Istanbul and Rome. I was educated at Salesian College, London, before going to Oxford where I graduated in English Language and Literature. I qualified as a teacher, becoming head of English at a secondary school. I am married to Josephine. We have a grown-up family and we live in north London.