On 11th December 2018, Kate Godfrey-Faussett launched a petition on CitizenGO campaigning for the rights of parents/carers to opt their child out of all aspects of the new Relationships and Sex Education that is going to be taught in all schools.
At ParentPower, we are pleased to support this initiative affirming the fundamental rights of all parents.
The wording of the petition is shown below. Follow the link at the bottom of this page to go to the actual petition.
Petition to: Secretary of State for Education
Give Parents/Carers the right to opt their child out of all aspects of RSE (Relationship & Sex Education)
“As concerned parents and UK citizens we want to call on our rights as parents/carers to be able to choose to opt our children out of all aspects of the new Relationship Education and Relationship & Sex Education curriculum (not just the ‘sex’ part) that will become mandatory in all schools across England from September 2020.
We have grave concerns about the physical, psychological and spiritual implications of teaching children about certain sexual and relational concepts proposed in RSE and believe that they have no place within a mandatory school curriculum.
Teaching RSE concepts in an ‘age-appropriate manner’ within school is a misnomer in that in any given class children will be at different levels of maturity. There is thus a real danger that children will be exposed to concepts before they are emotionally ready and psychologically mature enough to fully understand and critically evaluate what they are being told.
We are concerned that various sexual and sexual identity lobby groups will use the new RE/RSE curriculum as a gateway to promote their own agendas, beliefs and practices that many families do not agree with.
However, it is mandatory implementation of RE/RSE into all schools for all children from the ages of 4 to 16 years old, that we as parents and concerned adults object to here. We believe it is the parent’s fundamental right to teach their child RE/RSE topics or to at least decide who teaches them and when and how they are taught.
Government money would be better spent in supporting parents to teach their children these topics effectively, rather than assume parents are not doing a good enough job and thus deciding this must be left to the state.
We thus call on you to give this matter your urgent attention and to uphold a parent’s or primary carer’s right to choose how to educate their child in RE/RSE matters by giving them the option to opt out from all aspects of this new curriculum and teach these intimate matters to their children themselves.”
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