Should primary schools teach children about same-sex relationships? The new statutory guidance on relationships and sex education (RSE) is frustratingly vague on this question. It stipulates only that pupils should be “taught LGBT content at a timely point”, with no indication of how timeliness is to be gauged. Schools deserve, and need, a clearer steer than this.

Nowhere is this more evident than in my home city. Recent months have seen well-publicised protests outside several Birmingham primary schools over their teaching of the No Outsiders programme.

No Outsiders is a set of story books and lesson plans designed to promote equality and inclusion with respect to the characteristics protected under the 2010 Equality Act. The protests have focused on the positive representation of same-sex relationships, which the protesters contend is confusing for young children. In the words of one parent: “Children at this age don’t even know if they are coming or going, let alone knowing what sexual orientation they will become.”

It’s a shame the new RSE guidance ducks this issue, because most of its requirements are sensible and welcome. Sex education is rightly situated in the context of relationships education, and relationships education is broadly construed to include friendships and family ties as well as romantic and sexual relationships. The focus from the outset is on equipping pupils to navigate “an increasingly complex world” and to “manage their personal and social lives in a positive way”.

In a curriculum still heavily dominated by the study of academic subjects, this attention to informed choice and good judgement in a practical domain at the heart of human life is a major step in the right direction.

And the guidance is by no means silent on same-sex relationships. Schools are charged with ensuring that LGBT+ content is “fully integrated into their programmes of study”, not “delivered as a standalone unit or lesson”. Teaching about sexual orientation must be inclusive and respectful, and must provide pupils with “an equal opportunity to explore the features of stable and healthy same-sex relationships”.

But the lack of clarity about whether the topic of same-sex relationships should be addressed in primary schools is a significant shortcoming. Primary heads, particularly those encountering resistance in the communities they serve, are not helped by ambiguous appeals to timeliness. They need to know whether they are or are not expected to teach their pupils about same-sex relationships.

What steer should the government give here? The answer is simple: it should require the teaching of LGBT+ content in all primary schools. There are two reasons for this, one of which is ubiquitous in the current debate, the other of which scarcely gets a mention. It is the second, under-the-radar reason that really clinches the argument.

The ubiquitous reason is that, in an open, plural society, children must learn at an early age to respect difference. A typical primary school will include children of different ethnicities and nationalities, children with different religious and cultural practices, and children from different kinds of family, including families with same-sex parents. Both for the sake of the school community, and to prepare them for life in a diverse society, children must be brought to understand, accept and include people with backgrounds different from their own.

Same sex, different approach

This is a point emphasised by Andrew Moffat, creator of the No Outsiders programme: “We have to be delivering a curriculum that enables children to understand the benefits that exist in a society where diversity and difference are celebrated.”

Theresa May, in a piece marking the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall riots, concurs: “Teaching all children about respect for difference is a core British value, something I and every government should always stand for.”

Respect for difference is an important and sound reason for teaching about same-sex relationships in primary schools. But it’s not the whole story. And, if it’s the only reason teachers have in mind when they raise the topic with children, there’s a danger of putting too much emphasis on the differentness of families with same-sex parents. Alternative family structures are easily positioned as the exotic other, granted an arm’s length respect that avoids direct contact with “our” domestic arrangements and assumptions.

The second, less trumpeted reason for discussing same-sex relationships with children goes back to the basic justification for the RSE curriculum: schools have an important role to play in helping children to “manage their personal and social lives”.

Education must prepare people for life. Central to life are personal relationships of various kinds. And life goes better when we understand how those relationships work, what they offer us and ask of us, and how they can go wrong.

This is especially true in the domain of intimate, romantic and sexual relationships. There, feelings run higher, fears run deeper and fantasies run wilder. There, too, errors cost dearer, in unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections, in dysfunctional relationships and painful separations, in betrayals of trust and broken hearts. And there we must contend with the mighty forces of attraction and desire, with how to express them and when to act on them, with managing them when they are unreciprocated or unwelcome, and with the moral constraints, religious injunctions and cultural taboos that bear on them.

Necessary to an adequate education in this area is classroom discussion of same-sex attraction, same-sex relationships, discrimination against LGBT+ people, and religious objections to homosexuality.

According to one recent survey, half of 18- to 24-year-olds in Britain classify themselves as something other than “completely heterosexual”. Since 2001, same-sex marriage has been legalised in 28 countries, including the UK.

A systematic review of the literature published last year found that LGBT+ youth are more than three times as likely to attempt suicide as their heterosexual peers. RSE must equip all pupils to navigate the complex terrain of intimate, romantic and sexual relationships, including those who do or will identify as gay, lesbian or bisexual, and those who identify as straight but nevertheless experience same-sex attraction.

The idea that discussion of these matters should be delayed until children reach adolescence is dangerously wrongheaded. Children begin to speculate about the lives they will lead as adults, to role-play domestic arrangements, to dream about weddings and to experiment with romantic feelings long before they hit puberty. Primary school playgrounds are filled with gossip about who is crushing on whom. Children’s thinking about intimate relationships is shaped from their earliest years by storybooks and TV shows, toys and video games, as well as by the relationship models they see in their homes and communities. Anyone who has spent time with children can attest to their deep curiosity about love, romance, sex and sexuality.

Don’t just google it

To take a hands-off approach to RSE in primary schools is a dereliction of educational duty. It does not prevent children from thinking about intimate relationships; it just deprives them of the support and information they need to think about them well. The choice we face is between leaving children to pick their way through the sex and relationships minefield by means of furtive Google searches and whispered playground conversations, and providing them with a safe, structured environment in which to ask questions, acquire knowledge and reflect on their emerging identities and preferences. For the responsible educator, that is no choice at all.

This is not to deny that younger children should be spared the gory details of sexual acts, or that schools will need to make careful judgements about what is and is not age-appropriate in this area. It is obviously true that the RSE appropriate for seven-year-olds is different from the RSE appropriate for 14-year-olds.

But primary schools should have no qualms about acquainting children with the facts that people sometimes experience same-sex attraction, sometimes form same-sex relationships and sometimes enter into same-sex marriages. These are facts children should know not just because plural societies require respect for difference, but because, for a significant number of them, experiences of same-sex attraction and opportunities to form same-sex relationships will be part of their own lives. To leave children unprepared for these experiences and opportunities is to do them a major disservice.

Nor am I suggesting that schools should ignore the objections to homosexuality expressed by some religious communities. It must be made clear to children that LGBT+ people in Britain are protected by the law against discrimination, and that same-sex couples are entitled to marry. But teachers need not hide the fact that some religious groups consider same-sex relationships to be morally wrong, and it will sometimes be helpful to discuss such views explicitly. For one thing, children who do or will identify as gay, lesbian or bisexual need to be aware of, and to understand, the disapproval they will sometimes encounter. For another, arguments for the immorality of same-sex relationships are very weak and subjecting them to critical scrutiny can be an effective way to loosen their grip on the minds of those who espouse them.

Consider, for example, the argument that homosexual acts are wrong because the Bible prohibits them. This argument is easily defeated by reductio ad absurdum: there are biblical texts that prescribe animal sacrifice, the execution of witches and the stoning of non-virgin brides, and others that prohibit eating shellfish, getting tattoos and wearing garments made of two kinds of cloth. It may be true that the Bible attests to uniquely important events in human history, but there can be no question of reading off the content of morality from its many and varied injunctions.

Or again, consider the argument that homosexual acts are wrong because they involve using body parts in ways that disregard their biological functions. The obvious reply here is that morality does not constrain us to use things - objects, tools, organisms or body parts - only in accordance with their functions. If it did, people could be convicted of immorality for sitting on tables, walking on their hands, or pressing flowers between the pages of books.

Naturally, discussion of such arguments needs to be handled with sensitivity: it serves no purpose to alienate or offend children with sincerely held religious beliefs. But nor does it help children to pretend these objections to homosexuality do not exist, or to pass over them in deferential silence. Attention to both the objections and the replies that defeat them may well have a place in the upper years of primary school.

It will also be important to balance information about religious opposition to same-sex relationships with information about LGBT+ campaigns and support groups within those same religious traditions, to avoid the impression that any world religion speaks with a single voice on LGBT+ issues.

None of this is easy, but the new statutory guidance marks a step change in the UK’s commitment to RSE and a real opportunity for schools to extend and enhance their provision. The government should now provide the clarity headteachers urgently need, and rule that all primary schools must teach about same-sex relationships.

Michael Hand is professor of philosophy of education at the University of Birmingham. His most recent book is A Theory of Moral Education, published by Routledge

This article originally appeared in the 29 November 2019 issue under the headline “Navigating sexual orientation”