Debate contribution: Relationships and Sexuality Education

Debate contribution by Mr Pat Sheehan on 22 April 2024.

MLA: Mr Pat Sheehan
Party at the time: Sinn Féin
Date: 22 April 2024
Type: Debate contribution
Business: Private Members' Business
Heading: Relationships and Sexuality Education
Assembly identifier: Official Report component 4484722

Text

Sinn Féin fully supports the need for a relationships and sexuality education curriculum that is compulsory, age-appropriate, fact-based and delivered consistently across all schools. If we are serious about issues such as child safeguarding, supporting young people to have happy and healthy relationships, consent and tackling violence against women and girls, it is vital to give our children access to proper RSE in our schools. I had a meeting with Barnardo's earlier. One of the issues that came up was that of young people sending and receiving sexually explicit photographs online and, in their naivete, not understanding the implications of such action. There are well-known cases of young people having taken their own life after being blackmailed and told that their photographs would be posted online. One other young lad said that he had thought that, if he had come forward, the police would have become involved. First, RSE is to provide information to young people about the dangers of such activities.
Secondly, if, through naivety or for whatever reason, they get involved, they are given help about where to go for assistance in situations like that.
I have sat on the Education Committee for a number of years, and one thing that has come up time and time again is the inconsistency and, often, the lack of RSE provision in schools. Young people have told us that. Many have told us that they go through their entire educational journey without receiving teaching on that topic. While it is important to commend those schools that deliver high-quality RSE to their pupils, the issue is consistency. Although I understand the need for a degree of autonomy for schools in delivering other aspects of the curriculum, that autonomy should not extend to RSE. Many schools do not grasp it as an issue, and some are being led by external influences. That does not serve the needs of our children and young people. Teachers need to be empowered. They need the proper training and resources to teach RSE effectively. New legislation is welcome, but will it deliver what is required? I am not so sure that it will. The topic needs to be underpinned by fact when it is taught to young people and to be delivered in a consistent manner across all schools. There can be no equivocation in that. The need for RSE to be a compulsory part of the curriculum is clear. It is a child protection issue, and, according to the NSPCC:
"All school-age children and young people should receive whole-school comprehensive and inclusive RSE across all years. RSE can play a vital role in the safeguarding of children and young people. A whole-school comprehensive and inclusive approach to RSE has the potential to prevent harm to children by supporting children to recognise abuse and know how and where they can ask for help, understand consent and healthy relationships; and by enabling more adults to identify concerning behaviour and know what to do if a disclosure is made."
Organisations like that are the experts, and they should be listened to. I have been clear in previous debates on education that the child should be central in policy development. I have also said countless times that we need to be led by the evidence, and that is why I am supportive of relationships and sexuality education in our schools that is compulsory, age-appropriate, fact-based and delivered consistently across the system. I support the motion.

574 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

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