Tim Dieppe comments on the sex education programme ‘All About Me’, which is being rolled out across hundreds of schools in Warwickshire and teaches young children about masturbation.
The news that some primary schools are teaching self-stimulation, or masturbation, in relationships education was first broken in an Evangelical Times article earlier this month that we highlighted in our weekly news email. The article interviewed parents who had decided to withdraw their children from a week of schooling after seeing the content of some lesson plans to be used in the school. The Mail on Sunday then picked up on the story and ran it with the headline: “Children as young as SIX are to be given compulsory self-touching lessons that critics say are sexualising youngsters.”
‘All About Me’
The relationships and sex education programme in question is called ‘All About Me’. This is a rather egocentric title for a programme about relationships which should surely be about more than just ‘Me’! Some people are incredulous about the content, but the lesson plans for the ‘All About Me’ programme are available online for all to see and it is worth examining what they actually say. This scheme has been rolled out across 241 primary schools in Warwickshire. From 2020 parents can withdraw their children from sex education, but not from relationships education. This means that much of the ‘All About Me’ programme will be compulsory for children in primary schools.
Introducing Transgenderism in Reception
Transgenderism is introduced in the lesson plan for reception children (aged 4-5 years old). The Reception lesson plan states:
NB: You may well have a child whom, even at this early age, doesn’t feel like they fit the binary stereotypes of their birth gender. This is an ideal opportunity to talk to the class about the issue and ensure that their classmates are supportive and understand.
“Some people may feel that actually they like to dress in clothes or behave in a way we would usually associate with the opposite gender. Some children may even feel that their body doesn’t really fit how they feel, even though they were born with the body parts of a boy, that actually inside they feel like they are a girl, or vice versa. This can be really confusing for some children and for the grownups that support them so it is important that we accept them for who they say they are.”
How did we get to a world where anyone thinks it is helpful to introduce to young children the idea of people being born ‘in the wrong body’. It is no wonder that referrals of under-18s to the Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS) are now 33 times higher than they were just 9 years ago? Who is this helping? Children should be protected from harmful ideas that will not help their development.
Encouraging Talk about Private Parts from Reception
Naked pictures are used in the Reception lesson plans. The lesson plan for lesson 4 says:
Encourage the class to shout out and name the private body parts using the correct terms. Do not tell them off if they offer other names, but instead ask them if they know the real names.
When it comes to naming female genitals we would like to encourage you to use the term vulva, instead of vagina. The vagina is part of the female sexual anatomy and has in the past been used to describe the entire female sexual anatomy but the outside that we can see is actually the vulva and contains the most pleasurable bits of the sexual anatomy. The vagina is merely the tube tampons fit in and babies come out of. We would like to encourage girls to own their whole sexual anatomy, including their pleasurable parts rather than reducing it to merely their baby making body parts.
For year 1, the lesson plan for lesson 3 states:
Explain that there are some very important parts of our bodies that we need to know the names of that the song completely skips over, this is because some people (even grownups) find it uncomfortable to talk about them and find them embarrassing, but this is silly as they are still part of all our bodies and it is important that we feel comfortable to talk about and know what they are called.
Once again this is sexualisation of young children. Encouraging them to shout out names of private body parts is way of pressuring them to lose their innocence in these matters. It is trying to normalise talking about private parts and stigmatise any sense of embarrassment about discussing genitalia. Talking about “pleasurable parts” is sexualising children.
Self-stimulation from year 2
The year 2 lesson plan has this in the lesson objectives for lesson 4:
Children will consider their own rules for how they like to be touched by others and the rules of when it is appropriate to touch themselves, including self-stimulation.
The lesson plan says:
Now lots of people like to tickle or stroke themselves as it might feel nice. They might play with their hair, stroke their skin or they may even touch their private parts. This is really very normal. However, some people may get cross or say that it is dirty, especially when you touch your own privates. This is strange as it is really very normal, however, it is not polite to do it when other people are about. It is something we should 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.
Year 4 lesson plan has this in the lesson objectives for lesson 5:
Children will consider the rules of when it is appropriate to be naked or semi naked and when it is appropriate to touch themselves, including self-stimulation.
The Year 5 lesson plan has this in the lesson objectives for lesson 3:
Children will be informed of their own personal anatomy and the development of their genitals, including wet dreams, erections, self-stimulation and menstruation.
The Year 5 lesson plan for lesson 5 includes this example:
Autumn sometimes likes to touch herself when she is in the bath, it feels nice.
It is clear that self-stimulation is taught about and discussed from age 6 as reported in the Mail on Sunday. It is also clear that this will only serve to sexualise young children and to get them experimenting with their sexuality. It is not too far to describe this as a form of grooming. Encouraging young children to engage in sexual activity like this should be classed as abusive and illegal.
One of the architects of the All About Me scheme, sex education consultant Jonny Hunt, was asked by the Mail on Sunday why self-stimulation was in the compulsory section of the programme. He said: “Actually we refer to self-stimulation or self-soothing throughout the programme in earlier years as well. This is not sex education but actually information around safe and appropriate touching. However uncomfortable adults may find it, children of all ages will self-stimulate from time to time. They may do this when anxious or simply because it feels nice.”
Note how he believes that talking about self-stimulation is “not sex education” and therefore should be in the compulsory relationships education portion of the programme.
Normalisation of same-sex relationships
In the Reception lesson plan for lesson 2 the question is asked “What makes a family?” The plan says the children should be asked:
“Do all families have a mummy and a daddy?”
“Do some people have more than one mummy or daddy?”
This is deliberate normalisation of same-sex relationships from reception. No child can have more than one biological mother or father.
Marriage left out
In the whole programme, marriage hardly gets a mention. It is only mentioned in lesson 2 of the year 5 lesson plans. Here ‘marriage’ is listed in an A-Z of relationships. Other terms in the list include: ‘bisexual’, ‘homosexual’, ‘intimacy’, ‘sexual’, ‘violent’, ‘volatile’, ‘wedding’, ‘wife’, and ‘kisses! xx’.
The lesson plan states:
Ask them –
Do you have to get married?
Do you have to have children? How many?
Can two men love each other and get married? Can two women?
Can they have children?
Those are the only mentions of marriage in the programme.
Jonny Hunt, one of the architects of the All About Me programme, has written on his blog about the new draft guidance for RSE. He says: “it is further worrying the continued emphasis on marriage.” And then laments: “There still seems to be the belief that a marriage provides a safer environment for children or for sex.” The All About Me programme clearly aims to avoid teaching about marriage or encouraging marriage except to say that two men can also get ‘married’, or to claim that two men can have children – avoiding any mention of the woman who must necessarily be involved.
Sexualisation by the State
Sex education in primary schools has crossed a line. The parents quoted in the Evangelical Times article were quite right to withdraw their children from these lessons. Any reasonable person can see that these lessons are intended to sexualise young children and normalise same-sex relationships whilst avoiding promotion of marriage as the most fulfilling and rewarding relationship which benefits the whole of society.
Parents should ask your school what is being taught and demand to see the actual lesson plans. This article contains some practical suggestions for parents.
If society continues down this line of sexualising young children, and normalising same-sex relationships, self-stimulation, and transgenderism to young children we should not be surprised when we end up with many more damaged and confused adults with multiple broken relationships along the way. As Hosea said. “They sow the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind.” (Hosea 8:7).
It is time for Christians to speak up for the children and to take action to protect their children from sexualisation by the state.
You can read the full lesson plans for Reception, Year 1, Year 2, Year 3, Year 4, Year 5 and Year 6, and a further comment on the ‘All About Me’ programme by Jules Gomes.
