Children need to hear about dangers of porn, teachers say

Schools need more time and resources to warn children about the dangers of pornography, teachers in England have said.

Delegates at the National Education Union’s annual conference passed a motion calling for trained staff to address pornography in Relationships and Sex Education lessons. They also called for consistent reporting and recording of sexual harassment.

The union cited a 2021 Ofsted report, which found that 90 per cent of girls and 50 per cent of boys reported that themselves or fellow pupils had been sent explicit images they did not wish to receive “a lot” or “sometimes”.

‘Damaging’

Teacher, Amy Fletcher, who moved the motion, said pornography perpetuates “damaging and degrading views towards women”.

It is an appalling state of affairs that online pornography can so easily be accessed by young people

Geoff Barton, General Secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, cited Department for Education statutory guidance stating that “pornography presents a distorted picture of sexual behaviours, and can damage the way people see themselves in relation to others and negatively affect how they behave towards sexual partners”.

He added: “It is an appalling state of affairs that online pornography can so easily be accessed by young people” and “we hope to see the implementation of effective legislation to address this issue at the earliest possible date”.

Age-verification

Joint General Secretary of the National Education Union Mary Bousted highlighted that young children can accidentally access pornography due to social media algorithms.

Under the Government’s Online Safety Bill, pornographic websites could face large fines and risk being blocked if they do not have age-verification systems in place to prevent children from accessing content.

However, some other aspects of the Bill raise serious free speech concerns.