Schools Minister: ‘Outside groups cannot ban parents from seeing RSE materials’

Schools are expected to openly share Relationships and Sex Education (RSE) materials with parents, a Government minister has said.

Before his resignation yesterday, Schools Minister Robin Walker told MPs in a Westminster Hall debate that parents should not be denied the right to know what was being taught in RSE at their child’s school.

Last month, members of the House of Lords complained that outside organisations delivering RSE were ‘hiding’ their resources from parents.

‘Transparency’

Rosie Duffield MP asked the Minister if he was similarly disturbed by reports that headteachers were being prevented from sharing sex ed materials with parents by some external providers.

[Schools] should not enter into any contracts with third parties that seek to restrict them from sharing RSHE resources with parents.

In response, Walker said that the Government expected “schools to share RSHE content and materials with parents openly and transparently, where requested”.

He added: “We are clear that they should not enter into any contracts with third parties that seek to restrict them from sharing RSHE resources with parents.”

Extreme

Writing in The Times, Janice Turner said parents would expect RSE lessons to be “conducted by trained teachers, schooled in biology, alert to pornified and misleading internet content”.

But, she explained, the reality is that “any organisation can now teach RSHE, including activist groups with political agendas”.

The columnist argued that many schools “don’t have time” to oversee lesson content, “often entrusting outside speakers to address classes with no teacher present”.

activist groups with political agendas

As well as welcoming Walker’s statement that parents should have ready access to all RSHE teaching materials, she called on the Government to closely monitor “misleading materials” being foisted on schools by extreme outside groups.