Do we need relationships lessons in schools?

Those in power don't think so, it would seem. Last week, 303 MPs voted against an amendment to the Children and Families Bill that would have made sex and relationship education a part of the national curriculum. The only sex education that is mandatory at the moment is the science kind - the rest is left up to individual schools to decide. What do people think about this? My own experience is that - bar a couple of by-the-numbers chats on what a condom is and what the pill does - we were left to work things out for ourselves. Wouldn't it be worth our schools putting a bit more effort into teaching people about relationships, as well as just the nuts and bolts of sex? (A good piece on The Independent on this topic - from last week - intro below) Spoiler: Show Quote: One of my most vivid primary school memories is of sitting shamefacedly in a shocked Year 4 class, wondering whether I dared correct my fuming teacher. She had just sent a boy to the headteacher's office for saying the word 'sex'. In a noisy classroom she assumed he was talking about the adult kind. In fact, he'd been referring to gender - a distinction we were too young to make at the time. It would never have occurred to us to question the teacher's judgement in punishing a child for talking about sex. It was taken for granted that sex was inherently dirty; not something to talk about in polite company – or at all. It's perhaps not all that surprising that some might harbour a desire to prevent pupils from talking about sex when the pupils in question are eight years old, but this attitude remains pervasive throughout many young people's education. A 2011 survey by Brook showed that 26 per cent of secondary school pupils receive no Sex and Relationships Education (SRE) at all...more

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