The General Secretary of the Association of Secondary Teachers of Ireland has written to School Stewards to say that the SPHE and RSE programmes includes “sensitive issues” and that “teachers should only teach material they feel they are comfortable and competent to teach”.
The letter, from Kieran Christie of the ASTI, was sent in relation to both Social, Personal and Health Education and Relationships courses and Relationship and Sexuality Education in secondary schools, in order to “set out some key principles and advice.”
“In the first instance, ASTI believes that no teacher should be assigned to teach this programme unless they wish and feel confident to teach it,” the teachers association said, adding that:”In no circumstances should a teacher be assigned to teach the programme without full and comprehensive training”.
“ASTI acknowledges that the programme specification includes sensitive issues,” the letter continued. “In that context, teachers should only teach material they feel they are comfortable and competent to teach.”
“It may be the case that in some instances, additional expertise and support may be required to address sensitive issues contained in the programme specification. This is a matter that should be notified and discussed with school management,” ASTI said. The letter pointed towards a best practice guidance for schools in the use of programmes and/or external facilitators.
Aontú’s Aisling Considine, who had raised previously raised concerns regarding the content in revised sex education programmes in regard to gender ideology, said she welcomed the acknowledgment in the ASTI letter that teachers had a right not to teach material if they were uncomfortable with the contents.
“Many teachers, including myself, are uncomfortable with curriculum changes that are littered with gender ideology,” she said. “Speaking as a primary school teacher, I hope the INTO would see truth and reason, acknowledge these concerns and voice similar sentiment.”
Proposed changes to the curriculum for SPHE and RSE – which would have seen students being taught that gender was fluid and children might be assigned sex – proved controversial, as did changes that critics believed made the sex-ed course too explicit, as well as teaching students about “white privilege”.
Alan Whelan of the Catholic Secondary Schools Parents Association said that, in his experience, not many teachers volunteered to teach SPHE which could leave the youngest and “least experienced” expected to do so.
Another teacher, who has spent more than a decade teaching SPHE in schools, said that “as certain SPHE learning outcomes on the new specification are very controversial, many teachers are reluctant to teach it.”
“Parents need to wake up and see what is actually happening: school books now being bought by the school parents won’t see content,” she said, adding that it was important that ASTI had acknowledged the content is sensitive.
However, she warned that teachers’ reluctance to teach controversial subjects, which parents were objecting to, should not confer on outside organisations a “foothold” to come into schools to teach unseen materials to school students.
After the publication of the Cass Review in the UK, groups representing parents have called for a halt to the school curriculum development process until the National Curriculum authority (NCCA) can confirm that the findings of the Review are reflected in the curriculum framework.
The Cass Review, published on April 9th, reviewed the NHS Tavistock Gender Identity Development Service. Its findings matter for Irish schools, because of the strong influence transgender activists, some with radical views, have had on this area over a relatively short period of time
Gender identity is said to be an inner sense of self as being male, female, neither or both – and may or may not match your sexed body. It cannot be observed or measured and has been described by some as a ‘gendered soul’. Those who hold this belief – including children – may request to ‘socially transition’.
Some Irish schools facilitate social transition and allow students to change their names, pronouns, clothing and use the bathrooms of the opposite sex. However, the Cass Review found that social transition is a pipeline to medical transition – which can include puberty blockers, cross sex hormones and surgery.
Previously, the NCCA had told an Oireachtas Committee that many teachers are uncomfortable teaching sex-ed curriculum as they feel it isn’t “age appropriate.”
The revelation came during a Dáil committee meeting on gender equality, with discussions taking place around Ireland’s Relationship and Sexuality Education (RSE).
“What we found was that the biggest barriers to inclusive effective and child-centred RSE was teacher confidence and competence,” said Dr. Patrick Sullivan, who is the deputy chief executive of the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NCCA).
Sullivan added that many teachers had doubts that the RSE curriculum they were to deliver was “age-appropriate.”
“What can happen is that, with a teacher who is feeling unconfident and maybe a little bit unsure of themselves in the classroom, that they can think about, ‘maybe I can’t address that particular issue, maybe it’s not age and stage appropriate for me to speak about this issue with these groups of children,’” he said.
The ASTI’s letter said that it is “a matter of concern to ASTI that a substantial reduction in SPHE/RSE class sizes is not being implemented to support the programme.”
The association had previously said that it “does not accept that the ethos of the school, religious or otherwise, should determine the manner in which the RSE programme is provided to students. Students have the right to objective and factual relationships and sexuality education regardless of the type of school which they attend.”
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