Official Report: Minutes of Evidence

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): You are very welcome to the Education Committee, Dr King-Hill. Thank you for making the trip to present to our inquiry. We really appreciate your input this afternoon. We received the materials and the advice that you sent through, but, ordinarily, we ask witnesses to also make some opening remarks or a presentation on the subject. I am therefore happy to open the floor to you, for up to 10 minutes, for opening remarks, and then we will move on to questions and answers with members. There is up to five minutes for each member's enquiry. That includes the questions and the preambles, so that will give you a guide on how long you will have to reply. That is the way we operate the question-and-answer sessions, and it will enable us to make sure that we get through this afternoon's agenda. I am happy to hand over to you to start the evidence session.

Dr Sophie King-Hill (University of Birmingham): First, thank you for inviting me. I came over because this is an incredibly important topic. I am an associate professor in the health services management centre at the University of Birmingham. My research is focused on sexual behaviours and assessment in children and young people, sexual health, misogyny, masculinity, relationships and sex education, and the importance of youth voice. Much of my work is cross-sector and cross-disciplinary and is centred on participatory and co-design approaches with young people. I have researched and written extensively about sibling sexual behaviour and abuse, and I led half of the research for the national sibling sexual abuse project in England and Wales, which was funded by the Home Office and Ministry of Justice. I have carried out research in a number of fields that link strongly to relationships and sexuality education (RSE). For example, I have explored the extreme online hatred of women by incels; I have carried out research with young men and boys; and I have designed, with young people, resources for schools on RSE.

I have been an academic for 10 years. It is useful to highlight to the Committee that I used to work in the third sector. I was the national impact coordinator for a leading young person's sexual health charity. I also used to teach RSE to all ages in schools. Prior to that, I worked with teenage parents. Those young parents were some of the most inspirational young people I have ever met. That work, over 20 years ago, demonstrated to me the importance of relationships and sex education and their link to the choices that young people make.

Today, as I have 10 minutes to present to the Committee, I will focus on three components of my work: young people's voices; the importance of RSE to safeguarding children through the prevention of, and early intervention in, child sexual abuse in all its forms; and the importance of working with boys and young men for better outcomes for all genders.

The research that I have carried out demonstrates that young people are eager to be involved in the design and delivery of the RSE that they need. By doing that, schools and leadership teams can ensure that the RSE that is provided is fit for purpose and supports children and young people in negotiating and making sense of the world that they live in. Young people consistently tell us that they are being taught what they already know. They also tell us that, because of poor RSE, they are using other means to learn about relationships and sex. The majority of that learning comes from the internet, and includes going to pornography, various social media platforms and discussion forums. Those platforms and forums can be either incredibly informative and positive or incredibly damaging and negative. That also links strongly to the opt-out aspect of RSE for parents, which is incredibly dangerous. Opt-outs do not mean that children and young people will not get information on relationships and sex: they will get the information, but that may be diluted by their peers or obtained from flawed internet sources. My research is not stand-alone; it echoes a wealth of research from a number of fields in the subject area.

I appreciate that tangible examples of how that may look are needed. Leading RSE with young people's voices can be carried out by involving children and young people in session planning, school policy design and evaluation. Participatory approaches also support teachers, parents and school leadership teams in understanding the landscape that children and young people have to negotiate in modern society. That approach works well and ensures that children and young people can flourish. Children and young people are not passive in their learning: they have agency, and professionals need to work with them to ensure that good, robust, realistic and supportive RSE can take place to meet their needs.

More work on that with parents and carers needs to take place. It needs to be acknowledged that many parents and carers are not comfortable about talking with children and young people about RSE. We have to be supportive on that and bring parents and carers into schools in order for them to understand the research that underpins good RSE and how it protects rather than harms children and young people. In the same vein, teachers and educators need to be extended the same understanding in a whole-school and proactive approach to RSE. Good, robust and evidence-based training is crucial for teachers. Also, when they feel that they cannot teach aspects of RSE, there needs to be an avenue for them to say so. As my research with children and young people clearly indicates, if a teacher is uncomfortable when they are teaching certain sessions, no deep learning will take place.

It is useful to note that early evidence-based RSE does not encourage sexual activity. Abstinence education does not work; it is an approach that fosters shame and shuts down important dialogue. Good RSE has been shown to delay sexual activity in young people by supporting informed choices. That is not only echoed in my research but, for example, in that of the Sex Education Forum, UNESCO and NICE. Despite that evidence, education on developmentally appropriate sexual behaviours in children and young people is still fraught with issues, due to the perception of sexual behaviours and the position of children and young people and how they are perceived in wider society.

However, it is vital to keep in mind that children and young people are entitled to robust, evidence-based RSE that can support them to negotiate the sexual world around them and make informed choices about their own sexual behaviour. Schools also require flexibility when responding to the urgent contextual needs of children and young people: for example, the sharing of pornography. Evidence clearly indicates the need to be led by the context into which the RSE is situated, underpinned by the perspectives of children and young people. Not accounting for that can create inadequate learning environments and prevent the urgent needs of children and young people from being met.

Robust, incremental and well-planned RSE can be the first step in combating and reducing child sexual abuse, sibling sexual abuse and behaviour, child sexual exploitation and harmful sexual behaviour in children and young people. My research, and that of others, makes a clear link to why robust, evidence-based RSE can work as a vehicle for encouraging young people to engage with safe adults in their lives, which fosters early reporting of experiences of harm and abuse. Inhibiting RSE is proven not to work; it results in barriers to reporting and compromises safeguarding.

Children and young people are more vulnerable when information, concepts and education in RSE is hidden from them. The school should be a safe place in which to raise awareness of what abuse is and model healthy relationships. All aspects of harmful sexual behaviour and child sexual abuse can be prevented and recognised through good, realistic and well-taught RSE. An example of that can be seen in the national Sibling Sexual Abuse project in England and Wales for which I co-led the research. That project found that sibling sexual abuse and behaviour was often contextualised in a dysfunctional family setting, and that a large proportion of reporting took place when the survivors were adults. That was due to the lack of recognition of the harm that was taking place as a child. The study found that good RSE can support children and young people in that situation to recognise when they are being sexually harmed earlier, which results in earlier reporting and leads to more positive lifelong outcomes. That also strongly links to article 34 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), which states that Governments must protect children from all forms of sexual abuse and exploitation.

One of the key components of my recent work relates specifically to young men and boys. My research, and that of others, strongly indicates a need for sexual violence prevention strategies that directly engage with young men and boys to reduce violence against women and children by facilitating the inclusion of the voices of young men and boys. Working with young men and boys appears to be the solution when aiming to reduce sexual and gender-based violence and negative outcomes for young men and boys. Toxic influencers have gained traction of late, negatively influencing them. That tells us that, as a society, we have failed our young men and boys. In England, the 2019 Ofsted review on harassment in schools found that nearly nine in 10 girls said that their peers had been sent unwanted explicit pictures or videos, with nearly 50% of boys reporting the same. It also found that 92% of girls and 74% of boys said that sexist name-calling happened to them and their peers.

Since March 2021, over 50,000 testimonials from young people on their experiences of sexual harassment and violence in school have been shared on the Everyone's Invited website. That includes all of the UK and Ireland. Despite that, there is very little work that captures the voice of the boy in relation to sexual harassment. However, there is a wealth of research that states that dialogue, understanding and communication are key aspects of a culture shift. The Women and Equalities Committee in England, Scotland and Wales suggests that there is an urgent need to directly engage with young men and boys.

In my work and research with young men and boys, I have found that a blame culture compounds rather than solves the issue. Blaming boys is counterproductive. That is not an apologist position. Those who beat, rape and murder women are, overwhelmingly, men, but a new perspective needs to be taken under the RSE umbrella, because what we are doing to combat that problem is seemingly not working. Young men and boys need to be supported and empowered to be part of the solution. Violence experienced by boys from boys needs more recognition. Consent education also need to focus on young men and boys, and whether they consent to sexual activity, as that is not yet part of the conversation. Mental health issues in young men and boys also need more attention. At the moment, no gender is winning.

To summarise, there is a wealth of evidence that supports robust and well-planned RSE that is incremental from a young age. RSE is nuanced and complex. The voices of children and young people should be central to RSE design. Little or no RSE, or RSE that is not grounded in robust research, results in long-term, sometimes lifelong, negative outcomes for many children and young people. Good and realistic RSE can prevent, reduce and foster early intervention of all aspects of child sexual abuse. Good and realistic RSE can create a safe space for children and young people to recognise and report sexual harm.

More training and support for teachers is required. More direct work is needed for young men and boys. That needs to be done with the well-being of all genders in mind and complement the violence against women and children strategies that are in place. It also has to be complimented for the positive perspective that it gives to young men and boys to foster successful mental health outcomes for them.

It is the right of children and young people to have access to robust, research-based and realistic RSE.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Thank you very much. That was a really helpful presentation. I want to focus on the youth engagement aspect, and the co-design approach that you referred to. There are two levels to how individual programmes are defined: higher curriculum level and school level.

Can you give us any examples of where that has worked well, and of what good practice looks like? I am thinking about both those levels — curriculum design level and school level — when it comes to engaging young people.

Dr King-Hill: I carried out a piece of research with young people aged 14 and 15. I had some research money from the Economic and Social Research Council, through the University of Birmingham, to design a resource for relationships and sex education in England. I met those young people, gave them the curriculum and said, "Right, choose a topic, and let's create a resource". They sat for a while and then said, "Actually, we don't need a resource. We need to create something to advise teachers and school leadership teams what we need, because we are being consistently taught things we already know. It's embarrassing. We're not learning anything. The teachers are embarrassed". I co-created with them, although it was completely led by them, a guide for teachers and leadership teams called 'A students' guide to what you don't know'. The young people talked about being involved from the outset. They wanted to learn about curriculum design and be on an advisory board in the school to direct what was being taught to them, but they needed a safe space in which to talk about what they were already learning and being exposed to in wider society, such as on the internet.

In terms of how that looks in the classroom, it has to be contextually based. For instance, if extreme pornography is being shared in a classroom, there has to be a lesson on that fairly quickly. The young people have to be involved in that process to help to construct how and what they are taught, so that it is catered to their needs. I am 45 now. I know that, compared with young people, I know nothing about that arena. They are the experts in the world that they are living in, and we have to be led by them. We have the infrastructure to do that, but it cannot be tokenistic.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): I want to make sure that I have understood that correctly. You think that young people should be involved at the design stage in schools through whatever mechanism by which the school can make that happen, and that there should also be a responsiveness, almost in real time, to what young people are saying. How does that work? We have heard a lot of evidence about the need for RSE to be more standardised, to avoid patchy provision. Is there a risk that, with a very responsive programme, you could lose core elements that we have agreed everybody needs to receive? How would you strike that balance?

Dr King-Hill: You definitely need the core elements and the infrastructure to ensure that things that need to be taught are being taught. There needs to be a degree of flexibility in that, but there has to be a framework and clear guidelines on what should be taught.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): We are still very much working through the issues on which the Committee can, and cannot, agree in relation to RSE. There is a divergence of views on some of the issues. We will reach the point of generating a report, in which we may make some recommendations, particularly around what needs to be included in minimum content. If there were a review of the RSE curriculum more broadly at departmental level, how would you suggest that the Department engage with young people about what they say that they need, rather than just what the Education Committee says should be included?

Dr King-Hill: Absolutely. That is a really good question. First of all, it cannot be tokenistic. Quite often — I have seen it in this arena quite a few times — it will be a tick-box exercise, and people will say, "Oh yes, we've got a group of young people". They have to truly listen. I have a large-scale research project at the moment on the sexual behaviours of children and young people aged 13 to 18. As part of that, I have a steering group of 13- to 15-year-olds and a steering group of 16- to 18-year-olds. One of the best ways in which to get a steer and advice from young people is to have a really structured steering group of young people from lots of different and diverse backgrounds, but it cannot be tokenistic or a tick-box exercise. They have to be listened to. When it comes to safeguarding them and looking after their well-being, they are the experts. They tell us time and again that they are not getting the education that they need, and that we are imposing it on them. We have to listen.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): It is a challenge that we encounter. When the regulations here changed recently, after the Secretary of State introduced some of the new regulations on minimum content, the consultation exercise for that captured a tiny proportion of young people's views and, although it is important that parents are heard, a huge proportion of parents' views. Something felt a bit out of balance with that. Therefore, if there were to be any future changes, we would want to redress that. Thank you very much. I am happy to open up to members.

Mr Sheehan: Thank you, Sophie, for coming and for your presentation. Last night, we had a round-table event with stakeholders, and one of the issues that came up was that, given the controversy that there is around RSE here, parents have been subject to a lot of misinformation and disinformation. There is a view in some quarters that RSE is about sexualising children rather than providing them with information for their own protection and for their own good. One of the contributors, who is part of an organisation that goes into schools and delivers RSE, said that, in any situation where he has spoken to parents who are suspicious about the delivery of RSE, he has been able to convince them that it is a good thing. What is your experience in that area?

Dr King-Hill: First, wherever we are in the world, talking about sexual behaviours in children and young people is emotionally charged. We cannot condemn parents for wanting what they think is the best for their child. The majority of parents are not making decisions on their young people having sex education specifically without their well-being in mind, but my experience, when I talk to the parents and show them the research, is exactly the same as that of the contributor that you mentioned. I am a governor at a secondary school in England, and we come up against the same situations time and time again. As soon as you talk to the parents and show them the evidence, they are on board. We are trying to protect children, and, as I said, my research and research from the Sex Education Forum, NICE and UNESCO all says that the more information young people have, the longer they delay having sex.

We also have to talk to parents and carers about the reality of the world that young people live in, which includes exposure to really highly sexualised content without context. Trying to restrict mobile phone use, for example, which has been in the discourse in England quite a lot, will not work because, even if a young person has not got a phone, if someone else has pornography on their phone, for example, they will show it to them. There is a lot of evidence that most, if not all, children and young people will, by the age of 18, have seen pornography, either unintentionally or intentionally. That is what we need to talk to parents about. Young people live in a society where there is exposure to lots of different things, so they need a safe, robust space where they can explore the things that they might have seen and learn about the things that will keep them safe. It is all about children's well-being and safeguarding.

Mr Sheehan: How do you feel, therefore, about the opt-out option for parents on the delivery of RSE to their children?

Dr King-Hill: Opt-out is dangerous. It really is, and evidence supports that. It is a really dangerous move to opt out of certain aspects of relationships and, specifically, sex education because it does not mean that they are not going to get the education. It means that their peers might talk to them in the playground, but that might be diluted or skewed. It means that they might go looking for information on the internet, so they might go to pornography but they might also go to discussion forums and social media platforms. Do not get me wrong: some of those discussion forums and accounts are really good. Some are research-based, and there is a lot of good information on them for children and young people, but there are a lot that are bad and really negative. For instance, on the incel project that I led, which looked at extreme violence against women and, specifically, girls online, we found that a lot of young boys especially were typing questions into the internet and being tipped into discussion forums that are underpinned by incel ideologies. We have to really bring it back to the safe space of school, and I think that opt-out means that their relationships and sex education will be patchy and diluted and will put them at significant risk of harm.

Mr Sheehan: Thanks for that. I have one other question. You said that we have to stop blaming boys. How do you do that? Take the situation here, for example. We have the highest rate of femicide in the whole of Europe. Romania might be ahead of us, but that is the height of it. We also have very high rates of domestic abuse and violence against women and girls. It seems to me that the natural instinct is to blame men and boys. How do you get around that and deal with that particular issue?

Dr King-Hill: You are absolutely right. There is that big broad-brush blame, but that does not take away from the fact that boys and men disproportionately harm women and girls in that arena. It is not taking away from that, but the minute that you start blaming a whole gender, you shut down really important dialogue.

How do we do it? I will give a little example of one of the young men that I worked with in my young men and boys projects. He said:

I found it so profound that that came out of the mouth of a 15-year-old boy. When I have worked with young men and boys, we have had to create a safe space to start to unpick the problem, the resentment and how they feel about women and girls, men and boys, other genders and themselves. That safe space has to be truly safe. We have to be ready to hear things that we might not like. We do not want them to stick to a social script and say things that we want to hear. We need to get young men and boys on board and to talk about it with them and then translate that to a wider platform.

In my job over the past 20 years, it can sometimes feel like you are running through treacle, but, in this area, with young men and boys, I have some optimism. I have seen a distinct shift even in the past five years in the way in which people are talking about young men and boys. One reason for that is the rise of toxic influencers online. They have really made society sit up and listen and think, "Wow, we really need to do something if we have created a vacuum in which people like those toxic influencers can get traction". There is a shift, but we have to keep the momentum and have those conversations.

We also have to state that it is not an apologist position; it is a realistic position. We really want to solve the problem, but violence against women and children is not reducing, so what we are doing at the moment is not working.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): I will come in quickly on the back of that. A strong thread that has come through in our engagements with young people is that they do not like approaches that separate boys and girls for different lessons. On that specific issue, do you advocate the need for some specific, bespoke work with boys, be that in a school or a youth-work setting? Will you give a sense of what you think on that, very quickly, because I want to bring others in?

Dr King-Hill: First, I am a huge advocate of mixed-gender teaching. It is very important for everybody to know the reality of relationships and sex in the world that they live in. Sometimes, there might be specific work with young men and boys, so that they feel that they have that safe space, but there is something to be said for mixing genders when having that conversation. It will, again, be context dependent in the schools.

Mrs Guy: Thank you so much for your evidence. You come here with such authority, given your research and the fact that you have taught RSE. That gives you a really unique perspective on the issue and really adds weight to what you are telling us.

You referenced teachers a number of times in your evidence. I wanted to ask about that from a couple of angles. First, there is a really stark quote in the papers that you sent over. It says:

In that quote, you are capturing the teacher who wants to teach the subject and do so well. What training should we provide teachers? How can we get that right for them?

Dr King-Hill: As with children and young people, in the same vein, we have to start listening to teachers. It is about giving them a safe avenue to say, "I do not feel very comfortable teaching this for a number of different reasons. Although I am very passionate about it, I am uncomfortable, but I need to explore that". We do not even have that dialogue at the moment. Very rarely can a teacher go to a leadership team and say, "I cannot teach the year 9 pupils this topic today". We are not there yet.

When it comes to teacher support and training, it is about having those open forums and discussions on what they feel they can teach and how they can teach it. In the English context, because of the draft guidance that came out under the previous Government, teachers are really cautious and guarded. They are really scared of backlash.

Again, it is about working with them on the research evidence to show them that this is underpinned by research and that we are protecting children, not sexualising children. A lot of it will be about reassurance, but, again, that dialogue needs to happen. In a lot of cases, it is not there yet.

Mrs Guy: We talk a lot about parental opt-outs, and that is quite a formal thing in that there is a procedure and forms, but there is also teacher opt-out. Without those procedures and forms, they can decide to opt themselves out of teaching this subject. How do you feel about that? Is that acceptable? You have talked about listening to teachers, and that is really positive, but if a teacher just decides in a lesson, "I'm just not going to teach that", that surely cannot be right. How do you feel about teachers opting themselves out?

Dr King-Hill: It is very complex. On teachers opting out, there has to be an avenue for them to say, "I'm not comfortable teaching this topic", because the children and young people tell us consistently, in my research and that of others, that if RSE is taught by someone who is uncomfortable or embarrassed, it is horrible, no learning takes place and it compounds shame around sex. The reasons why they want to opt out need to be explored by the school leadership team and need to be addressed. If it is an ideological position, for example, or if it is a discomfort position, there is work to be done there within the school setting. However, there is nothing worse than a teacher teaching something that they are uncomfortable with, because that may lead to them giving incorrect information and making the young people feel embarrassed, and no deep, substantial, valuable learning will take place. However, I completely take your point on board that it cannot just be a case of, "Right, I'm not teaching that". It is about asking why, but there is no avenue for them to talk about that at the moment.

Mrs Guy: What if the school leadership is endorsing that position? What if the leadership team says, "That is fine. I agree with you. You should opt out"?

Dr King-Hill: Someone has to teach it in the school, and if there are no teachers in the school who feel that they can teach it, an outside agency, underpinned by legitimate research, needs to be brought in so that it does not sidestep relationships and sex education, because doing that is dangerous.

Mrs Guy: I have one last question. Something else jumped out in your briefing. You talked about how RSE can be used, and has been used, as, in your words, "a valuable political pawn." That sort of links to Pat's point about misinformation. We definitely had an awful lot of that here, where the conversation was very much hijacked at the start and presented in a way that, even for people like me, words would have been put in my mouth almost about what I think and what I feel and what my agenda here is that I could not recognise those words in my mouth at all. It seems like this has become a tool in a culture war. How can we navigate that to make sure that we can get the policies and the evidence-based RSE curriculum in our schools and avoid the hysteria and moral outrage that has polluted the conversation?

Dr King-Hill: Safeguarding has to be the driver. It is very difficult to disagree when you are saying, "I'm looking after children and young people and their well-being under a safeguarding umbrella". It will be emotionally charged, because it is about sexual behaviours in children and young people. As adults, we cannot even talk about developmentally appropriate sexual behaviours in adults. In wider society across the UK, Ireland and the world, there is a discomfort anyway when talking about this, so it is very easy to tap into those emotions and use something like this as a political pawn. However, doing that is damaging, and the people whom it is damaging are children and young people. It is all about safeguarding and robust research that transcends everything. Robust, evidence-based discussions have to be had.

Mrs Guy: Thank you very much. I appreciate that.

Mr Martin: Thank you, Sophie, for coming over and sharing with us. I will start where Michelle left off: with the opt-out. Obviously, we have the Executive formation and we have guidance that has come through from the Department around abortion in particular. That is where the opt-out kicks in. It works for years 8, 9 and 10, and then there is another aspect of it in year 12.

I think you said on the way through that that opt-out was dangerous. We have a number of different types of schools in Northern Ireland. We have a large Catholic sector and we have a controlled sector as well. There could be children whose parents perhaps have a religious objection to the teaching around, particularly, abortion, and I take your point on safeguarding. The Committee has already agreed on some of those issues. It is mission-critical. You have touched on some of the wider stuff as well. However, in that particular area, where the parents perhaps would not agree — perhaps even children would have a view on abortion— how would that opt-out work, or do you think it still should not apply?

Dr King-Hill: I do, yes. To not teach children and young people about the reality of the world around them is dangerous. We are not equipping them with the knowledge that they need. They need to learn it in a safe space. It has to be without any kind of agenda behind it. Teaching the facts around abortion is basic healthcare for women.

Mr Martin: OK. What about the rights of parents, if parents have a particular view and are bringing up their children with a faith background? How do you reconcile those two, given the fact that article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights underpins the parents' rights to bring up their child with a faith background?

Dr King-Hill: Absolutely. I am not negating that or side-stepping that at all. I come from Birmingham, which is a really multi-faith city, and I am proud to come from there, but it is safeguarding. We have to give children and young people information. We have to be gentle with parents as well. This is not condemning parents or their belief systems. It is about bringing them in, talking to them about the research evidence, about teaching, about the reality of the society around young people. To take that information away from them is detrimental.

Mr Martin: I will take you to your written evidence, if I may. You published an article, "Proposed sex education guidance in England goes against the evidence and may well lead to harm". I am sure you are more than aware of the evidence. In that written evidence, you state about the new guidance proposals from the Department for Education:

Later, you cite some of those proposals, which I will read out for the Committee's benefit. The proposals on the RSE curriculum, on when these subjects are taught — so I suppose that this is moving to a point where, whatever the curriculum is — you reference it in your evidence — when should these subjects be taught? The Department for Education guidance suggests that puberty should not be taught before eight; sex education before nine; direct references to suicide before age 11; and no explicit discussion of sexual acts before age 13. Do you feel that those are too late?

Dr King-Hill: There is no evidence for them. Those positions are not underpinned by any evidence at all about the impact on young people. If we take child sexual abuse, for instance, if we are not talking about sexual acts before they are 13, how can they recognise when harm is being done to them? I must point out, though, that that was a draft by the previous Government. We are not entirely sure what is going to happen with that or with any of the components. We are hoping that the new curriculum inquiry will look at that in a lot more detail. However, none of those that you have listed is underpinned by evidence. There is no developmental evidence on teaching that at those ages. There is nothing to say that, "At 13, you must teach this because", and the evidence to back that up.

Mr Martin: Around what you mentioned there about perhaps a child being abused and so forth, but not knowing because they were not taught it because there is no explicit discussion of sexual acts before age 13, I have a nine-year-old in school, and they have come through the NSPCC Talk PANTS programme. Kids of eight know exactly, and that is something that I am sure that the Committee agrees on. All our children go through those programmes, so they recognise "stranger danger", or people asking to touch something on them. They recognise that at age eight. That does not really answer my question about whether you feel those ages are appropriate. Clearly, if you oppose the guidance, you feel that those ages are too late, but to me and, I am sure, some parents in Northern Ireland, they are stark. Taking suicide as an example, do you think that those subjects should be taught before the age of 11?

Dr King-Hill: Yes, I do, but it has to be age-appropriate and incremental. That means talking about mental health and well-being. We need to address those things, because that is the reality of the society that we live in. Yes, I think that all those ages are too late, but the way in which those things are addressed has to be age-appropriate and incremental.

Mr Martin: I accept that. The challenge is this: what is age-appropriate? Clearly, some of those things are incredibly sensitive, and parents would like to have a view. There is a little bit of agreement on the Committee that whatever is being taught in RSE needs to be available and accessible to parents so that we are aware of all that. There is commonality there. However, when it comes to the stuff that I have seen in the draft guidance, my view, and, I think, that of a lot of parents, is that, while you suggest that those ages are too late, they are too early, based on Department for Education guidance.

Mrs Guy: May I —.

Mr Martin: Go ahead.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): I will just come in there. You may make the same point. It is important to note that we are talking about a different jurisdiction, in case anybody who is watching the Committee thinks that there is draft guidance for the Department here. I understand that you are widening the point. It is about being clear, for accuracy in our inquiry, that the draft guidance that is being referred to does not apply here.

Mr Martin: Absolutely.

Mrs Guy: We do not want to create more misinformation around this, because that has been a problem.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): We just need to be clear on that.

Mr Martin: To be fair, I was not doing it to create misinformation —.

Mrs Guy: If anyone misheard that and thought that you were referring to Northern Ireland, they might have the perception that we were talking about Northern Ireland, and that would be misinformation.

Mr Martin: It would be, except that I referenced the guidance in England and the fact that it was Department for Education.

Dr King-Hill: First, it is draft guidance and is not statutory, which is really important to highlight. To pick up on those points, we have to be realistic about the world that young people live in. If there were strict parameters on teaching about suicide for instance, but a child then said that they had been searching for the word "suicide" because they heard of it on the internet — I have seen three-year-olds with smartphones — schools have to be able to pick that up. They cannot be restricted, otherwise they cannot safeguard the child or young person. Take puberty. Some people start their periods at the age of nine. If puberty is not taught until the age of eight, that is too late. It has to be age-appropriate and incremental.

Mr Martin: I certainly accept that it has to be age-appropriate and incremental. I looked up the average age of puberty, and it is 12 — that is from a health body in the UK — but eight is being suggested here. I do not dispute the fact that it needs to be age-appropriate. I do not dispute the example that you gave of a child perhaps seeing something very disturbing to do with suicide, but, for me, that is a pastoral issue in the school. I do not accept that, because a child saw that, the whole class should be taught about suicide. If that is referenced in a school, there are really good safeguarding procedures and pastoral guidance in place. That is a pastoral issue that the school could pick up and address with the child. I have gone over my time, Chair; I apologise.

Dr King-Hill: Can I just pick up on that?

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Yes, if you want.

Dr King-Hill: The age of 12 is an average, which means that some do start their periods at nine, so that happens, and they will talk to their peers about it. We have to remember that children have agency. Children communicate with each other, and children have access to the internet. We cannot be naive about that.

Mr Sheehan: The point was made last night that one of the reasons behind RSE is that children can be educated on what abuse is, what it looks like and how, if they are being abused, they can articulate that. One case raised last night was that of a young girl who was being abused by her uncle. He said that he was putting his handkerchief in her pocket, and she was repeating that. If she had been able to say that he was putting his penis in her vagina, the abuse would have come to light a lot sooner than it did. It is important that even very young children are educated in the proper terminology to use.

Dr King-Hill: I agree 100%. We have to give them the terminology and tools to protect themselves. They have to understand when things that are happening to them should not happen to them, and then have the safe space to go and talk to somebody about it — a safe adult.

Mr Martin: I agree, Pat, absolutely. However, as we have said before on the Committee, that is safeguarding. While safeguarding may form a part of the RSE curriculum debate and the inquiry that we are having, that is a safeguarding thing. We all heard the NSPCC. No one disputes, and everyone welcomes, the fact that Talk PANTS is being delivered in our schools. The mission-critical part of this whole thing for me is keeping children safe, and there must be age-appropriate safeguarding taught in schools. That is happening. The NSPCC is doing that. The wider topics that we are debating here are more contested.

Mr Brooks: Peter does not need correction from me, but my feeling is that, a few times, it has been inferred that things are "misinformation" when they are just differing views and focus on different issues. I think that the context of this discussion, with the nature of the research and so on that the witness has given, is largely in the context of England and what we are familiar with and as it applies to our own system. It is unfair to infer that it, in any way, is "misinformation" to refer to English guidance. It may require clarity, but there have been a number of occasions now when a different view has been put and that it has been implied that it is "misinformation", almost on a deliberate basis. That is something members should reflect on.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): I raised the jurisdiction issue purely because someone picking up the conversation might have missed that nuance, and it was important. That is not to say that the question was invalid: it was — [Inaudible.]

Mr Brooks: It was not your comment that I was referring to, Chair.

Ms Hunter: Thank you so much for your presentation. It was incredibly detailed, and we can really see your passion on the topic. I have just one question. I made a Member's statement on Tuesday. I spoke with a PhD researcher based in Queen's in Belfast. She had done a piece of research on the Churchill Fellowship looking at ways in which we can make young boys feel empowered and listened to, ultimately. She had done research in America, and she met a team called Futures without Violence: Coaching Boys into Men. Basically, the model of this programme was that a trusted male role model, whether a coach or a teacher, would gather young boys in the class, have conversations with them and talk to them about leadership and what it is to respect women and talk through challenges. Being a teenager is a difficult time in anyone's life. Are there any projects or programmes like that that you have seen and that you think we could replicate and implement here?

Dr King-Hill: Yes. There are quite a few. You have to look at what is out there and translate it to your context. I can supply the Committee with a list of agencies and research in that area — not just my research on young men and boys, but that of other academics and professionals in the field, if that would be useful.

Ms Hunter: Brilliant. Thank you very much. That is it from me.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Short and sweet. [Laughter.]

That is great. Are there any other indications? Danny, were you looking to come in?

Mr Baker: No, I have no questions. I just really enjoyed the contributions. Thank you very much. I really appreciate that.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): There are no other indications, so that brings us to the end of our evidence session. Thank you again for your time. I appreciate that you have travelled to be here with us today. We will take all that evidence away and feed it into our final report.

Dr King-Hill: Thank you.