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Sex education video in primary school angers parents

10:20am Friday 20th June 2008

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By Ali Dent »

A SEX education video which uses graphic images and explicit words has caused uproar with parents at a Yate primary school.

Children as young as five could be shown the film, made by documentary makers at Channel 4, at Kings Court Primary School in Sundridge Park.

Parents are being consulted about the Living and Growing video, which uses animated sequences of two adults and real pictures of animals having sex.

The narrator also uses words many parents at the school say are inappropriate for young children.

One parent of a five-year-old boy and an eight-year-old girl at the school, who did not want to be named, said: "They are too young.

"It is quite explicit. How do we tell our children off for using words if they are being taught about them at school?"

Another mum, whose five-year-old boy and nine-year-old girl go to the school, said: "There was a showing of the video for parents and it was just too graphic for my liking.

"It is inappropriate until they are at the end of Year 6 at least."

The controversial film has sparked a debate over what age schools should start teaching children sex education.

Kings Court headteacher Maddie Kent said: "It gives children the information children need.

"It gives them the information in a very positive way in an enjoyable and fun way which they can deal with.

"It is all within the context of a loving relationship and teaches children to respect their own bodies and that what happens to their bodies is very natural.

"Considering what children are exposed to these days, this film makes sense of it all."

Mrs Kent said an 85 per cent majority of parents were so far in favour of showing the video.

One parent, whose nine-year-old son and 10-year-old daughter go to the school, said the issue had been "blown out of all proportion".

"Children don't remember very basic things so they are not going to remember words like that," said the mum.

"I would sooner they are taught about that sort of thing than me getting all embarrassed about it."

A meeting was held at the school on Wednesday night for parents to air their views over the film and questionnaires have now been handed out.

Mrs Kent will decide whether to show the film to pupils when responses have been collected and collated.

A spokesman for education authority South Gloucestershire Council said: "Children at Kings Court Primary School will not be shown the DVD until parents have been consulted.

"Ultimately it is the school's decision on whether to use the resource. Many schools across the South West already use this DVD."

Should the video be shown in the school? Tell us your view by posting a comment below.


Your Say YourDursley

Lelly, YAte says...
8:40pm Fri 20 Jun 08

For goodness sake! The parents who are complaining about this video, will be the same parents who will be dealing with a teenage pregnancy in a few years. How can we expect our children to have a mature attitude towards sex when their parents are completly inmature themselves! Children need to be educated to stop the spread of diseases and to stop teenage pregnancy. I think the UK in general need to change their attitude towards sex and sex education.

stacy, midlands says...
5:43pm Mon 23 Jun 08

I AM A MUM TO A 7YR OLD LITTLE GIRL WHO IS IN YEAR 2 NOW AND HAS COME HOME THIS EVENING AFTER WATCHING A VIDEO IN SCHOOL TODAY... SHE IS 7 AND I PERSONALLY DO THINK THAT THIS IS TO YOUNGER AGE TO BE LEARNING AND SEEING WHAT SHE DID TODAY.
SURE IT IS SOMETHING SHE WILL NEED TO KNOW BUT I FEEL THAT THIS SHOULD NOT BE PUT ON THEM AT SUCH AN EARLY AGE.
YES CHILDREN NEED TO BE AWARE AND KNOW THE FACTS BUT CANT HELP BUT FEEL THAT THIS WOULD BE AN ISSUE THAT WOULD BE GREATER ABSORBED AND SHOWN MORE UNDERSTANDING IF THEY WERE TO WAIT ANOTHER 12 MONTHS OR SO..
SEEMED BIT TO GRAPHIC FOR MY LIKING.. MAINTAIN INNOCENCE SURELY FOR ANOTHER 12 MONTHS OR SO.
THERE ARE SOME CHILDREN IN HER CLASS WHO HAVE NOT YET REACHED THERE 7TH BIRTHDAY AND ALL OF A SUDDEN ARE FINDING OUT ABOUT CLITORIS AND TESTICLES.. WAY TO YOUNG!!

allison, norwich says...
4:42pm Thu 3 Jul 08

my son who is just ten was watching these tapes at school as i origanaly agreed, they do need to be educated about this subject,im am not a prude in any way,but when your child informs you that when a female touches her clitoris its pleasurable,i found this to be not beneficial in any way in preventing pregnancy's or std,yes it was true as i asked the teacher,and her response was it was shown on one of the tapes,i have stopped my son from this course,as there is no need for him to be learning that kind of thing,if any thing its saying go try it as you will enjoy it!quite a few mums at the school are gob smacked as they didnt know what kind of material the kids are watching!

orgonotic, Devon says...
8:22am Sat 5 Jul 08

"im am not a prude in any way, but when your child informs you that when a female touches her clitoris its pleasurable, I found this to be not beneficial in any way in preventing pregnancy's or std"

Im sorry but what you said is prudish whether you want to admit it or not, what your child said is a perfectly true fact! What on Earth makes you come to the conclusion that the sole purpose of sex education is the prevention of teenage pregnancy or STD’s?..
By preventing him from learning about sex in a healthy manner you are likely to give your child an unhealthy attitude towards sex, which is probably the opposite of what you were aiming for. By hiding everything to do with sex and shrouding it all in secrecy he will get the impression that to have an interest in sex is unhealthy or unnatural, which is completely untrue. Children are naturally very curious about sex, thwarting that natural interest causes children to believe that sex is this mysterious, dirty, and dangerous thing, which healthy sex most certainly is not! Giving children a healthy positive and rational attitude towards sex is the best way to prevent STD’s and unwanted pregnancies because by being upfront with them about it they will be much more ready to accept the responsibility that goes along with real sexual freedom. Many people think children aren’t mature enough for that responsibility, at the moment we force children to accept the responsibility for preventing unwanted pregnancies and STD’s without giving then the right to healthy sexual lives in the first place! That is never going to work out. By repressing natural sexuality (overtly or covertly) you do not foster responsible attitudes in sexual matters. Repressing natural sexuality causes precisely what most people want to remove from human sexual behaviour; irresponsible behaviours in sexual matters, along with all the perversions (sadism, masochism, paedophilia, homosexuality, etc), along with a great deal of the anti-social behaviour and sadness we see in our society today.
The fact of the matter is that children are sexual beings, whether people want to accept that or not, and not only do they have a God given right to learn about sex in a rational way they also have the God given right to enjoy their own natural sexualities without fear of persecution for it. And this is what it comes down to at the end of the day, the real reason people are against healthy sex education is because they don’t want their children to actually engage in any sexual behaviour, because everyone knows that healthy sex education must of necessity include the chapter on PLEASURE! Quite frankly if children want to engage in sexual play that’s their business and no-one else’s, as long as they aren’t forcing themselves on anyone else, hurting anyone, or doing something they don’t really want to do then they are doing no harm at all. The only harm done by healthy child sex play is that done to the parent’s moralistic sex-negative character structures!
People have sex because its pleasurable, sex is pleasurable, children know this in spite of all attempts to hide the fact, unfortunately the majority of “sex education” in the world seems to be more intent on instilling a mortal fear of sex than anything else, fear and anxiety are used because they are the most affective ways of destroying healthy sexual functioning, and preventing children from engaging in sexual activity. Other means of sexual repression; chastity belts, genital mutilation (50% of baby boys in USA are still circumcised, this is rationalized genital mutilation), direct threats of violence, or threats of thunderbolts from an all seeing all punishing God are no longer used by most people in the U.K thankfully. Unfortunately that doesn’t mean we’ve given up repressing natural sexuality altogether, the forms have just changed, now we use much more subtle, but no less affective methods. Most of us don’t use the old methods because they are seen for the idiotic, sadistic, and barbaric practices they are, it’s only a matter of time before we realize that all repression of natural sexuality is inherently idiotic, barbaric, and irrational…

VOICE, everywhere says...
7:59am Sun 6 Jul 08

(lay down you will enjoy it,god gives you these bodys to enjoy,you will find it pleasurable,and its natural even though your only children said the paedophile)do not condem people for there views on any subject,as it can be twisted to your beliefs,everybody knows their children are going to have sex one day and that of course its natural,you expect your children to learn sex in high school,but this is about primary school ages from 5 who are still babbies to some parents,so at the end of the day i think it should be up to the parents,as we are there providers,guardians,

secruity,peeple they come to for advise and cuddles and make them feel safe,so if they want there children to learn about sex education in PRIMARY schools,it should be their choice,just remember every body is raised different,and there beliefs are different but i think we all just want to protect our children in our own way! as this page proves,my personal belief is let the parents decide not the govement on sex education in PRIMARY schools

orgonotic, Devon says...
7:54pm Mon 14 Jul 08

“(lay down you will enjoy it,god gives you these bodys to enjoy,you will find it pleasurable,and its natural even though your only children said the paedophile)”

Are you trying to imply that Im a paedophile just because I remember having a sexuality when I was a child, and how much I hated being brought up in a world that doesn’t understand even the basics about sexuality and feels the need to repress natural childhood sexuality?!?! I was well aware that ignorant people might associate an interest in the subject of childhood sexuality with paedophilia, but it was still a bit of a shock hearing it...
If people had behaved rationally and naturally about it I would never of vowed to try and do something about it when I was old enough for people to “have” to listen to my opinions. As a child myself I did try and talk to adults about the importance of not repressing natural childhood sexuality but was met with hostility or silence. I’d much rather not feel I “have” to speak up for children whose voices and opinions are not heard or accepted by the adults in their environments! I didn’t just wake up one day as an adult and say “now I feel the need to fight for children’s rights to be free from sexual repression”; that need has been with me since I was a child myself having to deal with the demented attitudes of the adults around me!..

“so if they want there children to learn about sex education in PRIMARY schools,it should be their choice,just remember every body is raised different,and there beliefs are different but i think we all just want to protect our children in our own way!”

I can appreciate what you are saying in a way, everyone has to decide how to bring up their children in a way they see fit. But some parent’s see nothing wrong with physically, or sexually abusing their children, should those people have “a right” to do that? Granting them that “right” means completely abdicating the responsibility to uphold, the child’s rights!..

What Im saying is that abusive parents don’t have a right to be abusive. And parents don’t have a right to deny a child its right to be free from sexual repression...

The only reason parents feel the need to repress their children natural sexualities in the first place is because they were forced to go through the same thing themselves and have forgotten all about it, or (unconsciously) they feel that if they had to go through it why should their children have it any better than they did, or they just feel that to affirm their children’s sexual rights is socially unacceptable…

The only reason schools have any need to get involved in sex education is because a lot of parents just aren’t capable of doing the job themselves. Its their for those kids whose parent’s are incapable of speaking about sex rationally and productively when the child asks for information about it. And unfortunately those parents are the majority.

And im well aware that were talking about PRIMARY school children.

I don’t want children to be forced to learn about anything they don’t want to learn about it. All I want is for children to be free to develop as nature intended, free from repression of natural sexuality, and to have their questions answered truthfully and factually, and un-moralistically when they ask them.
Sexual repression has been around for thousands of years and I don’t expect it to disappear any time soon, but things will have to change one day. I know writing on this web page is not going to have much affect, I only decided to comment to get some small idea of where people are on this subject, If it makes just one parent think about what they are doing and why then that’s a bonus…

Cheerz,
Lloyd.

P.S.
If you want a better understanding about why humans started to repress natural sexuality in the first place, and proof that things don’t have to be like this, check out:
The Invasion of Compulsory Sex-Morality – Wilhelm Reich
The Sexual Life of Savages - Bronislaw Malinowski

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