Legal challenge to sex education policy
THE GOVERNMENT is facing a legal challenge to restore the right of parents to withdraw their children from sex education.
It is being mounted by a faith-group group, Let Kids Be Kids Coalition (LKBKC), founded by a veteran Christian activist Charlie Colchester.
While children can still be excused from sex education lessons, the right was limited under the government’s new relationships and sex education policy.
Requests by families to withdraw children can now be refused by schools in “exceptional circumstances” and withdrawal applies only to the sex education component of the curriculum, but not to health or relationships education.
In addition, three terms before a child turns 16, it now becomes up to the child whether they wish to attend sex education classes or not.
“The right of withdrawal has got to be reinstated as a fundamental right,” Mr Colchester said.
The group was refused permission for a judicial review last month after a judge ruled it was too late to bring a case.
But an appeal against that decision has been set for next month.
The JC understands at least one Orthodox rabbi is supporting the group’s challenge.
The barrister it has instructed, Paul
Diamond QC, a specialist in human rights law, happens to be Jewish.
The RSE policy came into effect at the beginning of this term, although because of the pandemic schools do not have to start teaching the curriculum until summer.
One of its most controversial requirements for some religious groups is that children should be taught some LGBT content before they leave secondary school.
LKBKC argues that the Department for Education’s RSE guidance fails to preserve the right of parents to have their religious beliefs respected in education, according to human rights law.
Although MPs overwhelmingly approved the guidance last year, LKBKC says the procedure was flawed because the right to withdraw children from sex education is a fundamental right and therefore could only be altered through full legislation.
It is also critical of parts of the guidance, complaining of a lack of clarity over LGBT content, which it says “encourages the teaching of morally controversial and scientifically disputed topics such as gender fluidity and transgenderism as part of compulsory relationships education and health education”.
It also says the original law to introduce RSE, passed in 2017, was meant to ensure that what was taught was “appropriate” for the age and religious background of pupils.
But the guidance produced by the DfE weakened this provision, it says, leading to the “very real risk of the teaching of relationships education or relations and sex education inappropriate to the religious backgrounds of the pupils being taught”.