Schools in the United Kingdom have been in the press a fair bit in recent months over their curricula sharing elements from what could be considered a political agenda to expose children to overtly sexual themes from an early age.
The Warwickshire County Council has revealed a 20-page pamphlet with a new teaching guideline targeting children as young as four, introducing self-exploratory concepts akin to masturbation.
“All About Me”–the strange teaching pamphlet–details a section on the child’s ‘private parts,’ among other topics some parents find inappropriate for children of such a young age.
Jules Gomes reports:
The lessons do not mention marriage or commitment in sexual or romantic relationships even though the Education Act 2002 requires schools to teach children “the nature of marriage and civil partnership and their importance for family life and the bringing up of children.”
Six-year-olds (Year 2) are taught masturbation or “self-stimulation” and told it is “really very normal” and should be done “only do when we are alone, perhaps in the bath or shower or in bed, a bit like picking your nose, it is certainly not polite to do in class when everyone is watching.”
The lesson adds as an example for discussion: “When Autumn has a bath and is alone she likes to touch herself between her legs, it feels nice.”
The curriculum is consistently explicit and shows naked depictions of boys and girls from ages 4-5 onwards. An activity for year 4 (age 8-9) involves asking children to “draw hair” on pictures of a man and a woman “in a variety of places.”
Other proposals to incorporate more progressive elements to the education system have been met with resistance from parents.
A school in Southern England recently introduced a compulsory gender neutral dress code without informing parents, which sparked protests from both parents and students.
Taxpayer-funded broadcaster, The BBC, released an educational video suggesting that there were over 100 gender identities.
According to the Daily Mail, some parents didn’t take too kindly to the new teaching material:
Naomi and Matthew Seymour, whose two sons attend Coten End, strongly disagree with that assessment. Concerned their sons would be exposed to issues they ‘were not ready to hear’, they removed them from school for the week during which the programme was taught.
‘My wife cried the first time she read what was going to be in the lessons,’ said Mr Seymour, 38. ‘This sexualisation of our children is just totally inappropriate. They are calling it self-touching and they won’t use the term masturbation, but when you read it that’s exactly what they’re talking about.
‘We don’t want to start picket lines and wave banners. We’re just an ordinary family. I think many families who had seen these lesson plans would feel the same way we did.’
The “All About Me” teaching material will be trialed in 241 elementary schools.