Pupils as young as four to be given ‘consent’ lessons
CHILDREN as young as four will have lessons in ‘consent’ amid soaring sex crimes in schools and easy access to pornography, it has been revealed.
Boys and girls in primary schools will learn about respecting and enforcing ‘ boundaries’ in relationship classes.
Secondary pupils will study sexual consent as well as sexual abuse laws.
The classes – which will also teach pupils how to deal with the dangers of the digital world – represent the first major revamp of sex education lesphotos sons since they were introduced in 2000. They aim to introduce concepts of consent in an appropriate way for children at different ages.
In primary schools, youngsters will learn ‘building blocks’ such as how to deal with peer pressure in the real world and online.
They would be expected to understand that consent can be withdrawn and will learn about consent in relationships with friends, peers and adults, as well as appropriate boundaries in different relationships.
Meanwhile, secondary school children will study the law on sexual consent, grooming, domestic abuse, harassment and coercion.
Older pupils will also be taught about peer pressure, particularly in relation to sexting, where they could be persuaded to text naked
to classmates. The Department for Education plans to make
the lessons compulsory in all types of schools from September 2019. The DfE refused to say yesterday at what age schoolchildren will learn about the dangers of pornography. The classes will form part of the Relationships and Sex Education (RSE) guidance, and a consultation on the updates to RSE will be launched this week.
Education Secretary Damian Hinds said: ‘It’s vital that every child knows about their rights and that nothing should happen to them without their consent.
‘This new guidance will ensure lessons teach children and young people how to recognise when someone else has not given consent and more importantly why they should not put pressure on someone else to do something they don’t want to.’
The changes follow calls from young people, parents and campaign groups to teach children about consent and peer pressure.
Former education secretary Justine Greening outlined the revamped RSE curriculum last December, insisting it must ‘cover 21st-century issues’ such as cyberbullying and sexting.
Last October, police figures revealed there were almost 30,000 reports of children sexually abusing other youngsters during a four- year period. Of those instances, 2,625 took place on school grounds. The data released by 38 out of the 43 police forces across England and Wales showed that reports of so-called ‘peer on peer’ abuse rose from 4,603 in 2013 to 7,866 in 2016 – an increase of 71 per cent.
Figures from 30 forces also showed reports of sexual offences by children aged ten and under shot up from 204 in 2013-14 to 456 in 2016-17.
The figures were obtained by the BBC’s Panorama programme under the Freedom of Information Act. Experts have previously blamed easy access to online pornography on smartphones for fuelling sex attacks in schools.
Meanwhile, one in seven teenagers are ‘sexting’ each other – a term used to describe sexually explicit images or videos shared through the internet, according to a study in January published in the journal JAMA Pediatrics.
‘21st-century issues’