The Daily Telegraph

Welsh schools told to use ‘mixed muffins’ to teach gender identity

‘The materials approved in Wales are not at all age-appropriat­e’

- By Ewan Somerville and Louisa Clarence-smith widely

CHILDREN as young as seven could be a “mixed berry gender-fluid muffin”, teachers have been told in a sex education resource promoted by the Welsh Government.

The 170- page “Agenda” pamphlet, which has been promoted to all schools in Labour-run Wales, claims that biological sex “is not just ‘male’ and ‘female’” and lectures teachers on how some “want to change our gender pronouns” (eg, from he to she) or want to be “agender”, where they have no gender.

It has been described as the latest “highly inappropri­ate” example of sex and relat i onships e ducation in Britain’s schools, with critics claiming that Mark Drakeford, the First Minister, is “determined to push gender ideology”.

An investigat­ion by The Daily Telegraph last week found that pupils in some secondary schools have been told there are 100 genders and children are being taught gender fluidity as fact in some major academy trusts and independen­t schools, which led to Rishi Sunak ordering an urgent review this week.

This newspaper has now obtained the “Agenda” pamphlet, produced by Cardiff University academics in partnershi­p with the Welsh Government, the Children’s Commission­er for Wales and charities, targeted at seven to 18-year-olds.

The Welsh Government logo is listed on the pamphlet and Kirsty Williams, who was the Welsh education minister until 2021, said it had been “hugely successful and has been us e d throughout Wales”.

A section on gender identity recommends that teachers play the “mixed-muffin gender berry challenge” to learn about “how you can’t assume someone’s gender by how they look”.

Teachers are also urged to “pledge to find different ways of dividing young people other than their perceived sex or gender group ( eg, male/female, boy/girls)”.

Laura Anne Jones, Wales’s shadow education minister, said: “The materials being pushed and approved by the Labour Welsh Government are highly inappropri­ate and not at all age-appropriat­e for our children.”

A Welsh government spokesman said it had not commission­ed the resource, adding: “Any resources that schools use must be in line with the legal requiremen­ts and they must be developmen­tally appropriat­e. It must also be factual and neutral.”

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