At what age should schools introduce Sex Education classes to pupils [ENDS 8/08/2010]

At what age should schools introduce Sex Education classes to pupils?
Ends: 8th August

With teenage pregnancy rates soaring, the question of when schools should introduce sex education classes to pupils has been floating around. This debate is about discussing when in a childs education should they first be introduced to sex education classes, should it be in Primary School (ages 5-11yrs), Secondary School (12-16) and which ages specifically, what specifics should they be taught? Should it be a progressive system, i.e. learn X when you are 12, Y when you are 13 etc. Should schools provide sex education at all?

The debate is all yours!

Right at the start of secondary school. This is because secondary school is when sexual relationships may begin to start with all the feelings from puberty and if they don't know enough about it then the consequences could be terrible.

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Originally Posted by Superior

Right at the start of secondary school. This is because secondary school is when sexual relationships may begin to start with all the feelings from puberty and if they don't know enough about it then the consequences could be terrible.

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Agreed with this. Start it in year 7, they'll probably go through the whole "ewww" phase but they'll be thanking teachers later when they get to the stage where they need to know what's going on.

I think that they should be taught most of it in year 7 but they should still go over it in years 8, 9, 10 and 11.

i think mine started in like year 5 lol and it was way to early all i kept doing was laughing

but yeah year 7 i think only with the basic stuff, then year 8 cover all you need to know

Hmm, I remember having it in Year 5 as a sort of quick topic, but as above, Year 7 is ideal because that's when life slowly starts to change for everyone. In Year 5 you look at where babies come from in brief, then in Year 7 you go straight into looking at it in a bit more detail. It depends how you look at it really, the system I went through were you look at condoms in Year 11 was fine, as it goes alongside the law about sexual intercourse at 16, but for some this may not seem enough and the earlier you look at condoms, babies, STIs and STDs the better.

Perhaps they could do what they do with science and citizenship subjects (PSHE?) where it's covered briefly every year, with science looking at it in great detail while in PSHE it's looking at the social and physical changes (science looks at how it develops, PSHE looks at the simple facts and figures etc).

I think that makes sense?

I remember right back in Year Six and Five (My memory is good LOL) we learnt about babies ect in Year Five and then we learnt about puberty and condoms and periods ect in Year Six which i think is maybe abit to young because i am sure most sensible children won't have sex untill they are older and not at 10/11!! Year Seven and Year Eight i think is the best time to learn it in my opinion.

I started learning it in Year 6, mainly just laughed throughout. It was on the basics. Covered it again in Year 7 and we went into MUCH more detail, I thought it was disgusting at the time and yeah i dreaded the lessons xD. I think it should be mainly learned in Year 8, with the basics being taught in Year 7. Obviously then it needs to be covered more in Years 9, 10 & 11.

Start of secondary school. I think the problem is not when they start sex education, it's how they teach it. My sex education was crap. It was left to science and became more of a biology lesson. "draw a penis and label it", "draw a vagina and label it" hmmmm... 4 years later. today, we're gonna learn about... STDs!"

i think that the basics should be taught in year 7, and then it should be taught in more detail in year 8, mainly for the reasons above.

i think primary school is too young, i remember being taught about sex in year 6 and all the class did (me included) was laugh and joke about it.

year 7-8 is probably the best time to start because at this time itll be more relevant to whats actually going on, and the pupils will hopefully be mature enough by that time to learn about it.

should still go through to years 9 10 and 11 though.

I personally think year 6 is the right time, year 6 should signify when a kid is moving on to bigger and better things and with that should come this responsibility and knowledge. Thats when I first remember it being mentioned in any detail to us and packs handed out for the girls with things about periods etc and I think that was early enough. We all laughed in year 6, though we were split into boys and girls in my school when that happened and the detail was at a minimum. I do think it needs to be revisited in increasing detail throughout secondary school because really how much do you take seriously in year 6 and below? In the end though, you can tell some people about contraception, STD's and the likes until your sick of saying it and some people just do not listen.