Department warns schools over sex talks

The Department of Education has warned principals about inviting speakers into classrooms who use scare tactics, sensationalism or who lecture children morally.

As a controversial organisation defends its preaching of sexual abstinence in schools, the department also underlined how “talks or programmes delivered by outside agencies or speakers must be consistent with and complementary to the school’s ethos and RSE (religion) programme and policies”.

There has been sharp criticism recently of Pure in Heart, a Catholic organisation which goes into schools to promote sexual abstinence. Yesterday it defended the content of its talks to pupils and its habit of illustrating the dangers of premarital sex by sellotaping teens’ wrists together before ripping it off.