Four-year-olds 'should receive compulsory sex education' say charities » Communities » 24dash.com

Four-year-old children should be given compulsory sex education in schools, two sexual health charities are arguing.

The Family Planning Association (FPA) and Brook are calling on the Government to introduce a form of sex and relationships education into the primary school curriculum to help deter young people from rushing into sex too early.

This in turn would cut the rate of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and abortions among teenagers, they argue.

Teaching children as young as four about parts of the body and relationships with friends and family would start a dialogue that would help children feel able to ask questions as they grow up and make informed choices about their sexual health, they said.

Brook's chief executive Simon Blake said: "If we get high quality sex and relationships education in every primary and secondary school across the UK, all the evidence shows teenage pregnancy rates will continue to fall and will improve young people's sexual health.

"While sex and relationships education continues to be patchy, another generation of children and young people do not get the education they need to form healthy relationships and protect their sexual health."

Brook also wants secondary schools to ensure that young people have access to free confidential contraceptive and sexual health services.

The charities said that young people are being insufficiently educated about sex and relationships at the moment.

FPA chief executive Julie Bentley said: "Young people are telling us time and again that their current sex and relationships education is inadequate."

The Government is currently reviewing the delivery of sex and relationship education in schools to "improve the quality and consistency of provision to young people," it said.

A spokesman for the Department for Children, Schools and Families said: "Effective sex and relationships education is essential for young people to make safe and healthy choices about their lives and prevent early pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections."

A steering group, jointly chaired by Schools Minister Jim Knight and a member of UK Youth Parliament, will make recommendations to Government later this month.

The charities' proposals met with hostility from the Family Education Trust, a voluntary organisation which researches family breakdown.

The Trust said that calls to introduce statutory sex education lessons from the age of four were "misguided" and represented an attempt to "seriously undermine the role of parents".

The Trust's director, Norman Wells, said: "What this is really all about is the sex education establishment trying to force schools to do something many parents - and many teachers - are uncomfortable with.

"Schools already have to have a sex education policy, but that policy must be developed in close consultation with parents, and schools must be sensitive to the wishes of parents. But the FPA want to take parents out of the equation and remove discretion from schools."

The FPA, however, stressed the importance of involving parents and working with them.