Why good sex education for primary school children is crucial
Amid news that the government is proposing to ban sex ed for under-9s, research shows that children who study it from a young age tend to be smarter and safer
![Hero image in post](https://res.cloudinary.com/woo-staging/image/upload/f_auto/q_auto/c_limit,w_880/v1715861948/sex_education_landscape_3e422aca95.jpg)
![Hero image in post](https://res.cloudinary.com/woo-staging/image/upload/f_auto/q_auto/c_limit,w_2860/v1715861948/sex_education_landscape_3e422aca95.jpg)
Amid news that the government is proposing to ban sex ed for under-9s, research shows that children who study it from a young age tend to be smarter and safer
Sex education in the UK is notoriously terrible. Ask anyone you know what they learned about sex at school and you’ll likely hear much of the same sentiments – or groans. Millennials and older Gen Zers grew up receiving very little information about sex for school, filling the gaps in with advice from friends and porn, with… not great results.
While it's been some time since I was in secondary school, it seems nothing has changed for new generations, either. Recent research from the Sex Education Forum, carried out by Censuswide, showed that nearly one in five students said their in-school RSE [relationships and sex education] was ‘bad’ or ‘very bad’.
A variety of sex education organisations, including the Sex Education Forum, agree that the poor quality of school sex ed lessons calls for more funding, more expansive materials, and more standardisation on a national level, so that everyone in all schools is receiving the same (high) quality of education.
Yet, despite these calls, the British government announced plans yesterday to ban schools in England from teaching sex education to any children under the age of nine.
The reaction to this news has been divided. Some social media users expressed outrage over the news, concerned about how children will learn about sex from real experts. Others, however, have supported the ban. Hearing “banning lessons on how to have sex to kids under nine” to some, at face value, sounds reasonable. However, this isn’t the content of sex education classes for children of this age. Rather, sex ed for children rarely involves discussion of sex at all. At the age of nine and under, most lessons consist of information about the body, puberty, diversity, and menstruation – information kids need to have.
However, many British people – including the parents of those who receive sex education in schools – have fallen victim to misinformation, which has resulted in a moral panic around what happens in classrooms.
This hasn’t occurred in a vacuum, however, nor is it specific to this report of a ban for under nines. Rather, it's a small part of a widespread moral panic towards sex education that's been brewing in the political arena for the last few years.
The idea of young children being taught about sexual acts is uncomfortable and concerning. If this was truly what was happening in classrooms, the uproar might have been more understandable. And this myth that small children are taught explicit lessons about sex has been reinforced by various conservative MPs including Miriam Cates, Andrea Jenkyns and Gillian Keegan, who have either suggested or outright claimed that children are receiving “age inappropriate” lessons about sex, for over a year now.