Education Secretary Damian Hinds has reiterated the Government’s desire that schools should teach young children about LGBT issues.
Writing to a headteachers’ union, Mr Hinds underlined the importance of consulting with parents, but said schools should “decide the way forward”.
From 2020, all primary school children will have compulsory Relationships Education lessons – featuring teaching about “different types” of relationships.
Encourage
In his letter, Mr Hinds wrote “pupils should receive teaching on LGBT relationships during their school years – we expect secondary schools to include LGBT content”.
“Primary schools are enabled and encouraged to cover LGBT content if they consider it age appropriate to do so”.
Mr Hinds added that parents should be able to “ask questions and share concerns”, but do not have “a parental veto on curriculum content”.
And he highlighted an available budget of £6 million for 2019-20 to cover training on relationships, sex and health education.
Complaints
The letter was addressed to Paul Whiteman, General Secretary of the NAHT teachers’ group, and follows parental concerns over LGBT teaching.
Parents at seven primary schools in Greater Manchester have contacted school management to complain about proposed LGBT lessons.
And several schools in Birmingham have suspended LGBT programmes until a resolution can be reached with parents on the issue.
Widespread challenge
There has been widespread opposition to the promotion of LGBT issues in schools.
Parents in Oxfordshire have joined together to challenge a ‘Trans Toolkit’ which claims that saying there are only two genders is ‘transphobic bullying’.
In London, a school toned down its LGBT event after parents expressed concerns.
And in Brighton, critics have challenged council-backed ‘pronoun badges’ which encourage children to promote transgender ideology.