‘Toddlers need transgender lessons’
TODDLERS as young as two should be taught about transgender issues at nursery school, the National Union of Teachers (NUT) has said.
Delegates at the NUT’s annual conference in Cardiff called on its members to promote LGBT+ issues and urged ministers to make proposed sex and relationship education (SRE) “inclusive” so lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender students “are told explicitly in the law that their lives are important too”.
Teachers noted that there are currently a “lack of policies which promote LGBT+ within schools”, which they said can have a “significant nega- tive impact” on the well-being of students and teachers in this group.
Earlier this year, Justine Greening, the Education Secretary, unveiled plans to teach primary pupils about relationships and to teach at secondary level about sex and relationships.
She tabled an amendment to the Children and Social Work Bill which would see primary and secondary school children given “age-appropriate” sex and relationship education. The Bill has been approved by Parliament and will receive royal assent this year.
Currently only council-controlled secondary schools are required to teach children about sex in biology classes, meaning there is no such re- quirement on academies or free schools which make up the majority of secondary schools in England.
But teachers passed a motion which called on members to “campaign to ensure a comprehensive age-appropriate content including … LGBT+ matters for all schools from nursery throughout all phases of state education”.
Annette Pryce, a member of the NUT executive committee and teacher in Buckinghamshire, added that the “Right-wing, religious lobby” had prevented ministers from proposing a more “inclusive” agenda for sex education classes to include LGBT+ issues. “This new legislation has moved us forward but it is not inclusive,” she said.
“Those generations of young LGBT+ people who have been failed by the system are still not told explicitly in the law that their lives are important too”.
She added that the NUT must “ensure that SRE is inclusive to LGBT young people now and forever”.
Kiri Tunks, a teacher in east London and the NUT’s vice-president, said the opt-out available to faith schools and parents was a “dangerous loophole” which will “leave many young people ignorant and vulnerable”.
The NUT’s proposal, however, was attacked as “brainwashing”. “It is totally wrong to impose this extremist Leftists’ ideology on toddlers and preschoolers,” said Laura Perrins, co-edi- tor of the Conservative Woman website. “Parents send their children to nursery to be cared for – not to be brainwashed and confused by this transgender nonsense pushed by a minority of activists who care nothing for the needs of young children.”
uTeachers have backed possible strike action if the Government does not improve its current pay deal. Members of the NUT voted unanimously in favour of campaigning for a salary rise and putting pressure on the Government to end performance-related pay. Delegates heard teachers’ pay had been cut by 15 per cent in real terms since 2010 against a backdrop of increasing workload and a perceived staff shortage.