Parents are being given conflicting messages about whether they can access their children’s sex education curriculum, an en investigation reveals.
While the curriculum provider, Jigsaw, an independent education resource supplier, says parents can have a full view of it, schools are in fact denying them that right.
The resource contains a group activity where ten-year olds discuss masturbation.
Jigsaw, in an interview with en, was very open about showing the full resource to parents.
Different responses
However, parents have found that schools who have signed up to use Jigsaw resources are not allowing them to see the full resource. One school cited copyright law as a reason for keeping the resources secret. One school is not allowing governors full access to the Jigsaw resource despite them being responsible for selecting a school-wide resource to support RSE. Other schools have only capitulated and shared the resource after repeated requests to do so.
The reason for this difference between what Jigsaw and the schools are saying is not clear.
One source says that schools have signed a type of ‘non-disclosure’ agreement that only permits a school to share certain pre-approved sections to parents.
Transparent Jigsaw
Contrary to this, in an email sent to all Jigsaw purchasing schools viewed by en, Jan Lever, CEO of Jigsaw stated: ‘Jigsaw encourages schools to be transparent and show parents the materials…’ In interview, Lever said the en schools should share: ‘All of it. All of the materials are for parents to see … schools [can] get out all the lesson plans for each half term, invite parents in, and get them to look at the lessons.’ Her only and reasonable proviso was that the materials weren’t put onto a school website.
Transparent schools?
It was reported to en that governors had to request which sections of the resource they wanted to see, without even being shown a contents list.
A school said they are unable, due to copyright law, to show a parent the copyright agreement they signed. A professional in copyright law said: ‘Although there could be copyright in a written Agreement, this is not a reason for not sharing it especially as the parent wasn’t going to copy it.’ He continued: ‘The refusal … doesn’t make sense. They may be trying to put the parent off by using legal jargon.’
en asked Jigsaw, twice, to provide a copy of the copyright / agreement they ask schools to sign. en is yet to receive it.
