for the

Family

for the

Youth

for the

Future

Bulletin 139: Spring 2010

In this issue:

AGM and Conference

Saturday 26 June 2010
Royal Air Force Club, 128 Piccadilly, London W1
10.30am to 4.45pm

This year we are looking forward to hearing addresses from The Honourable Mr Justice Coleridge and Dr Aric Sigman.

Sir Paul Coleridge is a senior judge in the Family Division of the High Court, who has argued that promoting marriage as ‘the gold standard’ of family structures is long overdue. He will address the conference on the subject of ‘Turning the tide of marriage and family breakdown is impossible. Or is it?’

Dr Aric Sigman is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine and Associate Fellow of the British Psychological Society. He is the author of Remotely Controlled: How Television is Damaging Our Lives, and his most recent book, The Spoilt Generation, was reviewed in Bulletin 138. Dr Sigman will speak on ‘The Spoilt Generation: restoring adult authority in child development’.

As usual, we shall conduct the formal business of the Trust during the morning, with reports from the Chairman, Treasurer and Director, followed by an opportunity to hear from individuals and groups who have been hard at work to promote the welfare of children and young people. This year we are looking forward to welcoming for the first time Lisa Bullivant from Lincolnshire, who has taken a bold public stand against inappropriate sex education at her daughter’s primary school.

Please let the office know if you are planning to attend. There is no charge for attending the conference, and we are able to offer a substantial lunch for the subsidised price of £24.00. To reserve a lunch, please send a cheque for £24.00 made payable to ‘Family Education Trust’.

We do hope you will join us if you are able.

 

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General Election 2010

In the run-up to the General Election, all three of the major political parties have been at pains to present themselves as ‘the party of the family’, with a whole raft of policies that they claim are ‘family-friendly’. While Labour pledges to radically reform how Job Centre Plus helps lone parents to ‘find family-friendly work’, the Liberal Democrats promise to ‘improve life for your family’, and the Tories claim that a ‘Conservative government will make Britain the most family-friendly country in Europe’.

However, where the effect of a policy is to drive family members apart rather than bring them together, the term ‘family-friendly’ is something of a misnomer. It is therefore necessary to get behind the rhetoric and dig below the surface to establish what the parties really do stand for on issues that affect ordinary families.

While the Conservative Party asserts, ‘our society is broken, but together we can mend it’ and the Liberal Democrats refer to a ‘fragile society’ that needs to become ‘stronger’ and ‘fairer’, Labour protests, ‘Our society is not broken; it is strong in many different ways.’

In this Bulletin, we have attempted to outline the key manifesto commitments that each of the major political parties has made in relation to marriage, the family, child welfare, daycare and education.

The major parties at a glance

 

LABOUR

 

  • Expansion of free nursery places for two year olds and 15 hours a week of flexible, free nursery education for three and four year olds.
  • Childcare and constructive activities to be available to primary school children from 8am until 6pm during term-time.
  • Toddler Tax Credit of £4 per week from 2012.
  • Compulsory, high quality sex and relationship education, and improved citizenship education in schools as a precursor to reducing the voting age to 16.

CONSERVATIVE

 

  • Recognition of marriage and civil partnerships in the tax system.
  • Couple penalty in the tax credit system to be abolished so that the tax and benefits system no longer rewards couples who split up.
  • 4,200 more health visitors, and Sure Start to focus more on the most disadvantaged and dysfunctional families.
  • ContactPoint database to be scrapped, along with other measures to scale back ‘the database state’.

LIBERAL DEMOCRAT

 

  • Parents to be allowed to share the allocation of maternity and paternity leave between them in whatever way suits them best
  • UN Convention on Rights of the Child to be incorporated into law.
  • ContactPoint to be scrapped, along with Labour’s plans to criminalise young people who leave education between the ages of 16 and 18.
  • Early Years Foundation Stage and National Curriculum to be slimmed down to allow more flexibility.

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Election 2010: The Parties and the Family

Labour

 

In its manifesto, the Labour Party takes pride in its record in government since 1997 and takes particular delight in policies aimed at supporting working mothers:

We are proud of our country and the way it has changed since 1997. It is just too easy to forget… The welfare state simply did not understand working women and families. Today, with family friendly working and better childcare it has at last begun to do so.

Childcare

As part of ‘the next stage of national renewal’, Labour is planning ‘an expansion of free nursery places for two year olds and 15 hours a week of flexible, free nursery education for three and four year olds’. Labour’s long-term goal is to provide universal free childcare for two year-olds, but in the meantime it wants children’s centres to become ‘the bedrock of a new national under-fives service’, serving as ‘“one-stop shops”, open to all families, offering excellent affordable childcare, healthcare and parenting advice’.

According to the manifesto, a Labour government would retain childcare vouchers, with all families receiving income tax relief at the basic rate, and raise childcare standards by a more qualified workforce.

In an attempt to ‘help busy working parents juggle work and family life’, a Labour government would guarantee children of primary-age childcare and constructive activities from 8am until 6pm in term-time at their own or a neighbouring school.

Family life

The Labour Party manifesto speaks warmly and positively about the importance of family life:

Strong families are the bedrock of our society. Secure and stable relationships between parents, their children, grandparents and other family members are the foundation on which strong communities are built.

However, the document fails to recognise the overwhelming body of research evidence that demonstrates that all family types are not of equal value to society and that marriage is associated with greater levels of stability and better outcomes for children. Instead, marriage is presented as an option that may, or may not, benefit children:

Children thrive best in families in which relationships are stable, loving and strong. We support couples who want to get married and for whom marriage offers the best environment to raise children.

Marriage is fundamental to our society, but financial support should be directed at all children, not just those with married parents.

The Conservative plan to introduce a married couples tax allowance is rejected as a ‘divisive and unfair’ proposal which will ‘penalise loving and committed adults who, for whatever reason, are not married, and stigmatise their children’.

In terms of support for the family, the manifesto pledges ‘more help for parents to balance work and family life, with a “Father’s Month” of flexible paid leave’, allowing new fathers four weeks of paternity leave rather than the current two. A new Toddler Tax Credit of £4 a week from 2012 would also be introduced to give more support to all parents of young children – whether they want to stay at home or work.

Education

Following its failure to secure parliamentary support for statutory sex education through the Children, Schools and Families Bill (see page 6), the Labour Party has committed itself afresh to introducing ‘compulsory, high quality sex and relationship education’, which it believes will reduce teenage pregnancy rates. It also plans to commission a report on how best to improve citizenship education in schools so that young people are better prepared for their democratic responsibilities, as a precursor to providing a free vote in Parliament on reducing the voting age to 16.

Labour also remains committed to early intervention programmes and to bringing wider children’s services onto the school premises. The manifesto states: ‘Through Children’s Trusts, children and youth services will work closely with schools and colleges, increasingly co-locating wider children’s services with schools. Early intervention programmes with a proven impact will be promoted.’

With regard to school discipline, a Labour government would strengthen Home School agreements. Parents would be required to sign a contract each year agreeing to adhere to the school’s behaviour rules, with the possibility of receiving a court-imposed parenting order if they fail to comply. There would also be further investment in anti-bullying interventions including tackling homophobic bullying.

Labour: Other policies in brief

 

Failing schools: ‘Where parents are dissatisfied with the choice of secondary schools in an area, local authorities will be required to act, securing take-overs of poor schools, the expansion of good schools, or in some cases, entirely new provision. Where parents at an individual school want change, they will be able to trigger a ballot on whether to bring in a new leadership team from a proven and trusted accredited provider.’

Family justice system: ‘We have established the Family Justice Review to examine reforms to the family justice system making it more childfocused and family-centred. Parents who are clear their relationship has broken down and cannot be restored need more help to reach agreement about future arrangements early on in the process, for the benefit of their children.’

Grandparents: ‘We will remove the requirement on grandparents to apply for the court’s permission before making an application for contact with their grandchildren and we will ensure that grandparents and other family members are always given first consideration for adoption or fostering.’

Internet safety: ‘We will continue to promote internet safety for children, building on the recommendations of Dr Tanya Byron’s review.’

Lone parents: Lone parents with three year-old children would be required to take steps to prepare for work and actively to seek employment once their youngest child is seven years old.

Protecting children against sexualisation: ‘We will support parents who challenge aggressive or sexualised commercial marketing. We will ask Consumer Focus to develop a website for parents to register their concerns about sexualised products aimed at their children.’

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Conservatives

According to the Conservative Party manifesto, ‘Labour’s big government approach is making our social problems worse, not better’, with ‘family breakdown a fact of life for too many children’. In an effort to ‘make Britain the most family-friendly country in Europe’, the Conservatives make a series of firm commitments:

We will support families in the tax and benefits system, extend flexible working and improve parental leave. We will help parents cope with the commercialisation of childhood and give families more control over their lives. We will support and improve Sure Start, and introduce a new universal health visiting service. We will give targeted help to disadvantaged and dysfunctional families.

In order to fulfil the Conservatives’ vision to ‘mend broken Britain’, ‘a cultural change across the country’ will be required. Success will depend not just on the actions of a Conservative government, but also on society’s response.

Family policy

In common with Labour’s manifesto, the Conservatives are clear on the importance of the family:

Strong families are the bedrock of a strong society. They provide the stability and love we need to flourish as human beings, and the relationships they foster are the foundation on which society is built. The warmth of a child’s parenting is as important to their life chances as the wealth of their upbringing.

Unlike Labour, the Conservative Party makes a manifesto pledge to ‘recognise marriage and civil partnerships in the tax system’ in order to ‘send an important signal that we value couples and the commitment that people make when they get married’. In an oblique attack on Labour’s ambivalence towards the commitment signified by marriage, the Conservative manifesto states:

Labour’s complacent attitude to commitment has done untold harm, and their narrow approach ignores the importance of strengthening the relationships between all family members – children, parents, grandparents and the wider family.

The recognition of civil partnerships in the tax system is presented as a way of ‘promoting equality and tackling discrimination’. However, the suggestion that same-sex civil partners are in some way ‘married’ gives rise to concerns that the Conservatives are failing to recognise the uniqueness of marriage as the lifelong union of a man and a woman.

A Conservative government would end the couple penalty for all couples in the tax credit system in order to ensure that the tax and benefits system no longer rewards couples who split up. While tax credits would remain for lower income families, they would no longer be paid to households earning in excess of £50,000.

Education

A Conservative government would ‘enable parents to start new schools’ based on the Swedish ‘free schools’ model. Parents would also be given the power to save local schools threatened by closure, allowing communities the chance to take over and run small schools.

The Conservatives state that they would ‘make it easier for teachers to deal with violent incidents and remove disruptive pupils or items from the classroom’, ‘reinforce powers of discipline by strengthening home-school behaviour contracts’, ‘give teachers the strongest possible protection from false accusations’ and ‘stop [headteachers] being overruled by bureaucrats on exclusions’. They would also ensure that Ofsted ‘adopts a more rigorous and targeted inspection regime, reporting on performance only in the core areas related to teaching and learning’.

Sure Start would be retained, but it would recover its original purpose of early intervention in the most disadvantaged and dysfunctional families. An additional 4,200 Sure Start health visitors would be provided with a view to giving all parents a guaranteed level of support during pregnancy and up to the age of 5.

Civil liberties

In an effort to scale back what it describes as ‘Labour’s database state’, the Conservative Party undertakes to scrap ID cards, the National Identity Register and the ContactPoint database. The manifesto argues that:

The database state is a poor substitute for the human judgment essential to the delivery of public services. Worse than that, it gives people false comfort that an infallible central state is looking after their best interests. But the many scandals of lost data, leaked documents and database failures have put millions at risk.

In order to ‘protect our freedoms from state encroachment and encourage greater social responsibility’, a Conservative government would replace the Human Rights Act with a UK Bill of Rights, and with a view to protecting people from unwarranted intrusion by the state, it would cut back intrusive powers of entry into homes.

While supporting criminal record checks for people working in positions of trust with children, the Conservatives believe that ‘Labour’s new system goes too far’. They would therefore ‘review the criminal records and “vetting and barring” regime and scale it back to common sense levels’.

Conservatives: Other policies in brief

 

Childcare: ‘We support the provision of free nursery care for pre-school children, and we want that support to be provided by a diverse range of providers. A Conservative government will review the way the childcare industry is regulated and funded to ensure that no providers, including childminders, are put at a disadvantage.’

Commercialisation of childhood: ‘Children should be allowed to grow up at their own pace, without excessive pressure placed on them by businesses. We will take a series of measures to help reverse the commercialisation of childhood. We prefer to gain voluntary consent to these actions but we are prepared to legislate if necessary.’

Flexible working: ‘Making Britain more family-friendly means helping families spend more time together… [W]e will initially extend the right to request flexible working to every parent with a child under the age of eighteen. We want our government to lead from the front, so we will extend the right to request flexible working to all those in the public sector, recognising that this may need to be done in stages.’

Flexible parental leave: ‘We will introduce a new system of flexible parental leave which lets parents share maternity leave between them, while ensuring that parents on leave can stay in touch with their employer.’

Relationship support: ‘To give families more control over their lives, we will put funding for relationship support on a stable, long-term footing and make sure couples are given greater encouragement to use existing relationship support. We will review family law in order to increase the use of mediation when couples do break up, and look at how best to provide greater access rights to non-resident parents and grandparents.’

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Liberal Democrats

 

Liberal Democrat family policy is based on the premise that: ‘In Britain today, families come in all shapes and sizes.’ There is no reference to marriage or recognition of the importance of family structure in the entire manifesto. It is rather assumed that, with government support, ‘from help with childcare through to better support for carers and elderly parents’, every family can thrive.

Family policy

A Liberal Democrat government would allow parents to share the allocation of maternity and paternity leave between them in whatever way suits them best and give fathers the right to time off work for ante-natal appointments. It would also extend the right to request flexible working to all employees, making it easier for grandparents, for example, to take a caring role, and aim to provide 20 hours free childcare for every child from the age of 18 months.

Other proposed measures include incorporating the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child into UK law, enforcing the publication of an anonymised version of Serious Case Reviews, and helping protect children and young people from developing negative body images by regulating airbrushing in adverts. The Liberal Democrats would also introduce a Default Contact Arrangement which would divide the child’s time between their two parents in the event of family breakdown, if there is no threat to the safety of the child.

Education

Under a Liberal Democrat administration, schools would be freed from ‘the present stranglehold of central government control and encourage[d]…to be genuinely innovative’. The Liberal Democrats would invest an additional £2.5 billion in the school system ‘to allow schools to cut class sizes, pay for one-to-one tuition, introduce catch-up classes, or take other steps to ensure that every child has the best possible education’

Both the Early Years Foundation Stage and the National Curriculum would be replaced by slimmed-down versions to allow more flexibility, and all 5-year-olds would have a guaranteed Special Educational Needs (SEN) diagnostic assessment.

The Liberal Democrats would introduce an Education Freedom Act banning politicians from getting involved in the day-to-day running of schools and would cut the size of the central department of Children, Schools and Families. They would scrap Labour’s plans to criminalise young people who leave education between ages 16 and 18 and would allow educational charities and parent groups to be involved in delivering state-funded education through ‘Sponsor-Managed Schools’.

A Liberal Democrat government would ‘confront bullying, including homophobic bullying, and include bullying prevention in teacher training’. It would also ‘require better recording of hate crimes against disabled, homosexual and transgender people, which are frequently not centrally recorded’.

Civil liberties

The manifesto states that:

Liberal Democrats believe it is an individual’s right to live their lives as they see fit, without discrimination, with personal privacy, and with equal rights before the law. Decades of Labour and Conservative rule have overthrown some of the basic principles of British justice and turned Britain into a surveillance state.

They would therefore introduce a Freedom Bill to regulate CCTV, prevent councils from spying on people, defend trial by jury, and stop children being fingerprinted at school without their parents’ permission. They would also scrap identity cards, along with ‘the intrusive ContactPoint database which is intended to hold the details of every child in England’.

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Questions for candidates

The period leading up to a General Election offers a unique opportunity to raise with our local parliamentary candidates the issues which are frequently not directly addressed in the party manifestos. The following are suggested as examples of questions that supporters may wish to put to their local candidates, both in private and at public meetings:

  • Given that marriage provides the best environment in which to raise children according to every indicator, how would you seek to give recognition to this fact in public policy?
  • Would you be for or against a change in the law to permit homosexual couples to marry?
  • Are you in favour of making sex education lessons compulsory for children from the age of 5?
  • Do you agree that schools should be required to be sensitive to the concerns of parents when drafting and reviewing their sex education policies and do you support the right of parents to withdraw their children from sex education lessons where they are uncomfortable with the school’s approach?
  • What would you propose the government should do to address the high teenage conception rates in the UK and the alarming rise in sexually transmitted infections among young people?
  • Are you in favour of making contraception and abortions available to young people under the age of 16 without the knowledge and consent of their parents?
  • Would you vote for a law that made it a criminal offence for a parent to smack a naughty child?
  • Would you uphold the present law which allows parents to freely choose to home educate their children if they wish to do so without any requirement to apply for a licence from the local authority?
  • How would you propose to make it a more realistic option for mothers to stay at home to care for their children if they wish to do so?

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Sexualisation of Young People Review

A recent independent review on the Sexualisation of Young People published by the Home Office contains a wealth of sobering facts and figures and serves as a wake-up call to parents and others concerned for the welfare of children and young people.

Conducted by psychologist Dr Linda Papadopoulos, the review considered hundreds of articles from the fields of psychology, sociology, education, politics and the media, and received evidence from young people, parents, teachers, clinicians, academics, policymakers, lobbyists and practitioners working with abused children and abusers.

The original purpose of the review was to investigate the impact of the sexualisation of young girls on violence against women, but the scope was subsequently widened ‘to encompass the sexualisation of all young people and to look at how hyper-sexualisation and objectification of girls on the one hand, and hyper-masculinisation of boys on the other, perpetuate and reinforce each other’.

Definition

The report defines sexualisation as ‘the imposition of adult sexuality on to children and young people before they are capable of dealing with it, mentally, emotionally or physically’. It argues that the growing tendency to portray children in ‘adultified’ ways while ‘infantilising’ adult women is blurring the lines between sexual maturity and immaturity and legitimising the notion that children can be related to as sexual objects.

Dr Papadopoulos notes that ‘the volume of sexualised images and the extent to which they impinge on everyday life are significantly greater than they were as recently as two decades ago’, and they are becoming ever more explicit. There is, she writes, ‘a blurring between the “mainstream” media, whether in the form of billboard posters, magazine covers, music videos, fashion shoots or film trailers, and the world of pornography’. She argues that the proliferation of sexual images leads to gradual desensitisation – ‘the “drip drip” effect is an insidious but powerful mechanism by which the previously unthinkable becomes widely acceptable, often within a relatively short space of time’.

Mainstreaming pornography

A chapter entitled ‘Sexualised content and the mainstreaming of pornography’, provides an overview of how sexualised images and messages are being promoted through magazines, air-brushing, advertising, children’s clothing, television, the internet, children’s websites, pornography, computer games, mobile devices, and music videos and lyrics.

Dr Papadopoulos calls on parents to exercise control over the exposure of their children to sexual images and to avoid unwittingly contributing to their children’s sexualisation by means of beauty pageants or encouraging them to undergo cosmetic surgery. However, she argues that there are limits to what parents can achieve alone and states,

It is imperative that companies that promote the premature sexualisation of children for their own commercial interests act more responsibly, and that companies, advertisers and media outlets are aware of and take steps to minimise the negative impact that the images and messages they promote are having on children and young people.

Gender confusion

While Dr Papadopoulos provides a valuable analysis of the growing sexualisation of young people and its adverse social consequences, we fear that her recommendation that Personal, Social, Health and Economic education (PSHE), along with digital literacy be made a compulsory part of the national curriculum for all children from the age of five would run the risk of adding to the problem. Neither are we persuaded that viewing media literacy and gender studies as core to the curriculum would be a positive move.

While the report contains 17 references to ‘gender stereotypes’ and a further 21 references to ‘gender equality’ or ‘gender inequality’, it does not at any point recognise that there are gender differences. To introduce into the school curriculum an approach to gender studies that fails to recognise that men and women are both equal and different would sow the seeds of further confusion. The answer to hyper-sexualised girls and hyper-masculinised boys does not lie in some kind of androgynous denial of gender distinctives. Rather, we need to recover an understanding of manhood and womanhood that sees them as equal in dignity and worth but different and complementary in the way that they relate to each other.1

Reference
1. 21 Reasons Why Gender Matters http://www.gendermatters.org.au/Home.html

Linda Papadopoulos, Sexualisation of Young People Review, Home Office, Feb 2010 http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk

 

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The impact of music videos and lyrics

On average, young people listen to music for between 1.5 and 2.5 hours each day. Music lyrics and videos are therefore a significant potential influence on young people. Music videos across all genres sexualise and objectify women and between 44 and 81 per cent of music videos contain sexual imagery.

Emerson notes that artists tend to ‘portray themselves with a highly stylised and glamorous image’ and that that image is often highly sexualised. Arnet supports this, claiming that ‘…the portrayal of sexuality in popular music has become less subtle, [and] more explicit.’ Women are often shown in provocative and revealing clothing, and portrayed as decorative objects that dance and pose rather than, say, singing or playing an instrument. They are depicted as being in a state of sexual readiness, and there is often a focus on their bodies or on specific body parts and facial features.

Even where women are the performers, they are often presented and portrayed in an overtly sexual way. Violence occurs in 56.6 per cent of videos and visual presentations of sexual intimacy in over 75 per cent. Perhaps most tellingly, 81 per cent of the videos containing violence also include sexual imagery. Males are often shown as hyper-masculinised and sexually dominant…

Research into the often sexual and violent content of music lyrics is comparatively thin on the ground. However, the APA Task Force noted the tendency of popular song lyrics to sexualise women or refer to them in a derogatory manner…

One study based on a sample of 160 songs found that an average of 16 per cent contained sexually degrading lyrics, rising to 70 per cent within certain genres. A 2006 study revealed that, while lyrics from almost all music genres contained sexual content, degrading sexual content was most apparent in rap-rock, rap, rap-metal and R&B. The researchers identified a possible link between exposure to popular music and early initiation of sexual activity, pointing to the prevalence of sexual themes and referring to a previous longitudinal study linking music video consumption with risky sexual behaviour.

Sexualisation of Young People Review, pp49-50.

 

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Government forced to drop sex education and home education plans from Children, Schools and Families Bill

In the closing hours of the last parliamentary session, the government reluctantly dropped its plans to introduce new legislation in relation to sex and relationships education and home education. Having run out of time to steer the Children, Schools and Families Bill through its remaining stages in the House of Lords before the General Election, Ed Balls and his ministerial team reluctantly conceded defeat on the most controversial parts of the Bill in order to salvage some of the less contentious clauses.

The proposals would have seen sex and relationships education (SRE) made a statutory part of the national curriculum for pupils in maintained schools from the age of five, with parents losing the right to withdraw their children from SRE classes after their 15th birthday. The Bill would also have introduced a licensing scheme for home educating families accompanied by intrusive monitoring procedures.

But when the government failed to secure the support of the Conservative Party to put its proposals on a fast-track to receive Royal Assent before the dissolution of Parliament, it was left with no option but to abandon its plans. However, the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families, Ed Balls, is determined to reintroduce the proposed measures without delay in the event of a Labour victory at the General Election. In a letter to Michael Gove, his Conservative Shadow, Mr Balls wrote:

It is a great pity that you have put at risk improvements in our schools, support for pupils and the well-being of our young people. I will be campaigning to ensure that this Government is returned and that these measures do make it on the statute book in the first session of the new Parliament.1

Home education

While Labour’s commitment to regulate home education remains undiminished in spite of strong opposition from some of its own backbenchers and the largest number of petitions presented to parliament on a single issue, a Conservative administration would be extremely unlikely to revive the proposals contained in the Children, Schools and Families Bill.

Speaking in the House of Commons, the Shadow Schools Minister, Nick Gibb, described the government’s proposals for compulsory registration and monitoring as ‘dictatorial’ and ‘draconian and excessive’. He stressed that ‘the choice to educate a child at home should belong solely and entirely to parents’ and expressed concern about the ‘hostility’ that had arisen between home educators and local authorities as a result of the Badman report and the government’s handling of the issue.2

For the Liberal Democrats, Phil Willis drew attention to ‘a fundamental flaw in our thinking in this country… that it is the state’s job to educate our children’. He continued, ‘It is not; it is the parents’ job. The Education Act 1944, and indeed Forster’s great Act of 1870…, both state that it is the parents’ duty to educate their children.’ Even though the majority of parents make use of state education provision for their children, Mr Willis stressed that the fundamental principle of parental responsibility for education should not be forgotten.3

Sex and relationships education

Although the support of the Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats for statutory SRE within Personal, Social, Health and Economic education (PSHE) is clear, as is their commitment to reducing the age up to which parents may withdraw their children (Labour to 15, and the Liberal Democrats to 14), the position of the Conservatives is more ambiguous.

Shadow Schools Minister, Nick Gibb, told the House of Commons that the Conservatives would have been happy to legislate for statutory PSHE, including SRE, but that they could not agree to the proposed erosion of the right of parental withdrawal from SRE classes; neither could they support making PSHE statutory in academies ‘because the essence of an academy is that it would have the same rights as an independent school but would not be able to charge fees’. If elected, he indicated that the role of PSHE in the curriculum was an issue that a Conservative government ‘would address and consult on’.4

However, Mr Gibb’s parliamentary colleague, Christopher Chope, expressed concern at the prospect of a Conservative government being willing to legislate for statutory PSHE. He remarked:

I believe that there is enough centralisation in the curriculum already. Given that schools are able to deliver PSHE perfectly well on the basis of acceptance of their own responsibility through governing bodies and parents, I hope that on reflection, an incoming Conservative Government will not meddle with PSHE, and will instead concentrate on our core requirements for better educated pupils who understand the basics of reading, writing and arithmetic.5

References
1. Ed Balls, Letter to Michael Gove on the Children, Schools and Families Bill, 7 April 2010 http://www.edballs.co.uk/index.jsp?i=4812&s=1111
2. HC Hansard, 8 April 2010, col 1230.
3. HC Hansard, 8 April 2010, col 1233.
4. HC Hansard, 8 April 2010, col 1229.
5. HC Hansard, 8 April 2010, col 1234.

 

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640 headteachers, school governors and faith leaders in opposition to Children, Schools and Families Bill

A total of 640 headteachers, school governors and faith leaders supported a letter to the Sunday Telegraph signifying strong opposition to the Children, Schools and Families Bill at the end of March. The letter, which was also signed by over 1,500 concerned parents, grandparents and members of the general public, was published on the eve of the discussions between government ministers and members of the Conservative front bench team that determined the fate of the Bill.

Co-ordinated by Family Education Trust, the letter was signed by headteachers and governors from primary and secondary schools in both the faith and non-faith sectors, and by a wide range of church and faith leaders.

Contrary to government claims of well-nigh universal support for the proposed legislation, the letter demonstrated that there was widespread disquiet within both school and faith communities about moves to reduce the influence of parents over what is taught in such a sensitive area. The letter stated:

SIR – Parents and guardians have the primary responsibility for bringing up their children in accordance with their own values and culture. They may entrust the task of formal education to a school of their choice, but the overall responsibility for the upbringing of their children remains theirs.

The Children, Schools and Families Bill undermines this principle and seeks to impose a particular ideology by means of statutory sex and relationships education from the age of 5 (which primary schools do not currently have to teach). We would therefore urge Parliament decisively to oppose it.

A state which seeks to centralise responsibilities which are properly fulfilled by families is acting in an unjust manner and undermines the basis of a free society.

In the accompanying news item, Family Education Trust director Norman Wells commented that the Bill was ‘music to the ears of those who have long campaigned for compulsory sex education to advance their agenda to break down traditional moral standards, re-define the family, promote relativism, celebrate homosexuality, and encourage sexual experimentation’. He added that it was ‘time to stand up to the encroachment of an overbearing state’.

Sunday Telegraph, 28 March 2010.

 

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Sex education and home education – the law remains unchanged

As a result of the government’s withdrawal of the clauses relating to sex education and home education, the law remains unchanged:

Sex education

· Sex and relationships education (SRE) within Personal, Social, Health and Economic education (PSHE) will not become a statutory part of the national curriculum from September 2010;

· Primary schools are under no obligation to deliver SRE beyond what is required in national curriculum science;

· Governing bodies remain responsible for determining the SRE policy for their school in consultation with parents;

· Parents retain the right to withdraw their children from SRE lessons throughout their school career;

· Schools are still required to have regard to the Department for Education and Employment Sex and Relationship Education guidance issued in July 2000, with its strong emphasis on consultation with parents and taking account of parental wishes.

Several supporters and members of the public have advised us the some schools have been radically changing their approach to SRE, claiming that they are required to do so by changes in legislation. In some cases, they have been pre-empting the government’s original intention to legislate for statutory SRE from September 2011, but in other instances, they have been going beyond that.

If you are aware of schools that are claiming ‘new legislation’ as a basis for introducing sex education at primary level, for making changes to the curriculum at secondary level, or for denying parents the right to withdraw their children from SRE classes, please let us know.

Home education

· The legal duty for ‘causing their children to receive efficient full-time education suitable to their age, ability and aptitude’ remains with parents;

· Home educating parents are not required to apply to the local authority for a licence to home educate;

· Local authorities have no statutory duties in relation to monitoring the quality of home education on a routine basis;

· The Elective Home Education Guidelines for Local Authorities issued by the Department for Children, Schools and Families in November 2007 remain in force.

As with SRE, the proposals originally contained in the Children, Schools and Families Bill, combined with the recommendations of the Badman Report have caused considerable confusion among local authorities, with some local authority officers erroneously believing that the law has changed.

Please let us know if you are aware of local authorities advising home educators that ‘new legislation’ or ‘the requirements of the Badman review’ mean that they are now obliged to hold a compulsory register or engage in the routine monitoring of home educated children.

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Cohabitation in the 21st Century

Cohabitation has always been markedly less stable than marriage, but it is an even more unstable form of relationship today than it was 15 years ago, according to an up-to-date analysis of cohabitation statistics from the Jubilee Centre. Based on the most recent wave of British Household Panel Survey Data, the study found that:

  • Cohabitation is generally short-lived. Couples live together for a mean of three years, with almost 50 per cent of couples separating before two years. More than half of all cohabitees who separate do so in less than two years.
  • Less than a quarter of first cohabitations last five years and just one in nineteen of all cohabiting couples (5.3 per cent) has been together for ten years or more.
  • This is particularly pronounced for couples with children. The proportion of couples still cohabiting by the time their first child is 16 has dropped more than fivefold over 14 years. In contrast, over the same 14 years, marriage has become a more stable family background for children. Married couples are now more than ten times as likely to stay together until their child is 16 – 75 per cent, compared with just 7 per cent of cohabiting couples.
  • Contrary to popular opinion, cohabitation does not serve as a ‘trial marriage’ or reduce the odds of divorce. Previous studies suggesting that first cohabitations among the never-married that lead to marriage do not significantly affect the divorce rate are emphatically not supported by this data set: such couples are 60 per cent more likely to divorce than those who have not first lived together.
  • The increased divorce rate is not explained by taking into account the length of time that cohabitees have already lived together. Couples who live together before marriage are 60 per cent more likely to divorce within ten years of the start of their live-in relationship.
  • The marriages of people who do not cohabit before marriage tend to last an average of four years longer than those who do cohabit before getting married – 13 years compared with 9 years. Couples who cohabited prior to marriage and later divorced are likely to have done so within 7.5 years of their marriage. Couples who did not cohabit prior to marriage and later divorced are likely to have done so within 11.5 years.

The cost of family breakdown for 2007-08 has been estimated at £41.7 billion, an equivalent of £1,350 per taxpayer per year.1 Given the projected rise in the number of cohabiting couples in England and Wales from 2.25 million in 2007 to 3.7 million by 2031, and the clear link between cohabitation and family breakdown, it is anticipated that these costs will rise significantly in coming years. The authors therefore urge the Law Commission to carefully consider the financial implications of any recommendation that encourages couples to cohabit – either as an alternative to marriage or as a prelude to it.

References
1. Relationships Foundation, Counting the cost of family breakdown, February 2010.

John Hayward and Guy Brandon, Cohabitation in the 21st Century, Jubilee Centre 2010 http://www.jubilee-centre.org

 

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Abstinence study shows positive results

Abstinence-centred education is more effective in delaying the age at which young African American students become sexually active than sex education programmes with an emphasis on contraceptive use, according to a recent study published in the journal Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, a publication of the American Medical Association.

Researchers from the University of Pennsylvania placed 662 African American students in grades 6 and 7 (ages 11-13) into one of four groups. While one group received abstinence-only education, a ‘safe sex’ group was instructed in contraceptive use, another group was taught both abstinence and contraception, and a final control group received health education that was totally unrelated to sexual matters.

The study found that students in the abstinence-only group were one third less likely to engage in sexual activity during the following two years compared with those in the other three groups. The minority of young people who did become sexually active having received abstinence-only education were no less likely to use condoms than those who had been instructed in contraceptive use.

The researchers concluded that abstinence-only interventions may have an important role in preventing adolescent sexual involvement, though the lead researcher, Dr John Jemmott, added that more research was required to determine the efficacy of abstinence-only education for different sections of the population. ‘Policy should not be based on just one study, but an accumulation of empirical findings from several well-designed, well-executed studies,’ he said.

John B. Jemmott, Loretta S. Jemmott, Geoffrey T. Fong, ‘Efficacy of a Theory-Based Abstinence-Only Intervention Over 24 Months: A Randomized Controlled Trial With Young Adolescents’, Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med. 2010; 164(2):152-159.

 

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New sponsor – Professor Brenda Almond

We are delighted to welcome Professor Brenda Almond as a sponsor of the Family Education Trust. Professor Almond is Emeritus Professor of Moral and Social Philosophy at the University of Hull, and also serves as President of the Philosophical Society of England and Vice-President of the Society for Applied Philosophy. She is author of The Fragmenting Family, published by Oxford University Press, a subject on which she addressed our annual conference in 2006.

More recently, Professor Almond wrote a devastating critique of the government’s teenage pregnancy strategy for the Daily Mail. ‘[F]ar from promoting restraint or commitment,’ she wrote, ‘the entire emphasis of this politically correct system is on the so-called ‘sexual rights’ of young people. She was particularly critical of the prevalent approach to sex education in schools ‘with its concentration on self-gratification and its aggressive refusal ever to condemn any form of personal behaviour, no matter how destructive’ and lamented the fact that this ‘nonjudgmental attitude has…become the new secular religion of our times, with any attempt to raise issues of morality now regarded as a form of heresy’.

Professor Brenda Almond, ‘We’ll never end our teenage pregnancy epidemic until we admit what’s REALLY causing it’, Daily Mail, 26 February 2010.

 

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