Official Report: Minutes of Evidence
Committee for Education, meeting on Wednesday, 27 November 2024
Members present for all or part of the proceedings:
Mr Nick Mathison (Chairperson)
Mr Pat Sheehan (Deputy Chairperson)
Mr Danny Baker
Mr David Brooks
Mr Colin Crawford
Mrs Michelle Guy
Ms Cara Hunter
Mr Peter Martin
Mrs Cathy Mason
Witnesses:
Professor Chris Bonell, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
Inquiry into Relationships and Sexuality Education: Professor Chris Bonell, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Good afternoon, Professor Bonell. You are welcome to this Education Committee evidence session. Thank you for contacting us to offer to give evidence to our inquiry.
I do not propose to do much more of a preamble. I will hand over to you and invite you to make an opening presentation or remarks of up to 10 minutes, and then we will move to questions from members. We tend to keep interactions with each member to five minutes where possible so that we can get through the session. It may not take as long as that; it depends on the questions that come forward. If there is anything that you want to add to your introduction, please do so. I will hand over to you.
Professor Chris Bonell (London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine): Thanks. I am a professor of public health and sociology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. I am involved in a large trial of sexual health interventions in English schools. We are collecting follow-up data, so we do not have any results from that trial, but we have some results from the baseline survey. I will describe some background literature before I talk about the results of our baseline survey and what that told us about relationships and sexuality education (RSE) in England.
Systematic reviews that comprehensively look at the evidence find that good RSE can contribute to promoting sexual health, preventing dating and relationship violence and increasing disclosure of sexual abuse and violence. RSE should begin early enough to enable young people to navigate relationships safely and prepare for competent first sex. What I mean by "competent" is that it is freely chosen, where the partners are equally willing, there are no regrets and there is use of modern contraception.
The provision of RSE in England and in the UK has often been patchy. In England, a 2021 poll of about 1,000 English young people aged 16 and 17 found that only a third recalled RSE in their schools as being very good or good, with lower ratings among girls. Over one third had not learned about power imbalances in relationships; sexual pleasure; female genital mutilation (FGM); or pornography. About one third had not learned about healthy relationships, grooming for sexual exploitation or accessing local sexual health services.
A 2018 survey of almost 7,000 young people in England aged 18 to 19 found that just under half reported that their school's RSE was fairly or very useful. Most RSE focuses on straight and cisgender students and on heterosexual sex, neglecting the needs of sexual and gender minority students. The survey of 18 to 19 year-olds in England that I just mentioned found that young people from sexual minorities were significantly more likely to report that their school's RSE was not useful. UK studies that drew on interviews and focus groups and involved talking to young people identified that RSE provision in schools is often heterosexist and sometimes overtly homophobic.
Adolescents' experiences of and needs relating to RSE can also vary, according to all the subgroups in the population. A 2008 study of about 3,000 15 to 18 year-olds in England reported that minority ethnic students, particularly black students, wanted to learn more about the cultural and religious beliefs that impact on sex and that Asian students reported a preference for school as a source of learning. A 2012 study found that, compared with other sources, black students were less likely than white students to seek information from school RSE.
I will move on to our study. As I said, the evidence comes from a baseline survey of a trial of an RSE intervention in England. We are halfway through it. We looked at student self-reports by survey of their experiences of RSE. We surveyed a large number of students across 50 schools in England. Girls perceived RSE to be less well covered than did boys, as did gay or bisexual students compared with heterosexual students, as did minority ethnic students compared with white students and as did poorer students compared with better off students.
The topics that more than 60% of students reported as being well or very well covered included body changes at puberty; conception; whom to contact if they had experienced abuse; how to say no to something sexual that is not wanted; and the correct names for genitalia. The topics that fewer than 30% of students reported to be well or very well covered included sexual pleasure; readiness for intimacy or sex; how to use a condom; pornography; which sexual activities are safe; female genital mutilation; and masturbation. Students said that the following should be priority topics in any future RSE that they experience: how to say no to something sexual that is unwanted; spotting signs of abuse in relationships; STIs; and how to use a condom.
The proportion of students reporting sexual harassment at school during the previous year was 8·5%. Considering that they were only year 8 students, aged 12 to 13, that is quite a high rate. Girls and non-binary students were at a higher risk of sexual harassment than boys, as were gay and bisexual students compared with straight students. In our data, neither ethnicity nor family influence was significantly associated with an increased risk of sexual harassment.
In conclusion, RSE is patchy and does not meet the needs of all students. It may be that teachers need to be better selected; often, RSE is taught just by teachers who have a gap in their timetable and who are reluctant to teach it. They need better training, including in initial teacher education, and better materials in order to ensure that they are able to provide the learning and can engage with challenging or potentially embarrassing topics without discomfort. They also need more dedicated time in the school timetables for teaching such topics. RSE is still sometimes taught in, for example, tutor group periods, because it has been crowded out by other subjects. RSE provision should ensure that the content and teaching methods are orientated towards the needs of all students, including girls, gender and sexual minority students and minority ethnic students. Not doing so risks compounding existing health inequalities concerning adverse sexual health outcomes amongst those groups.
The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Thank you. I will make a start. I want to ask about something that has not really come out in our previous evidence sessions, although it was highlighted in a youth engagement session. It is about the data on minority ethnic students, which shows that quite high numbers of those students feel that the RSE that they receive is less well covered or less well delivered. Do you have any views on why that may be? What would the appropriate response be to ensure that those students' needs are met? We had a youth stakeholder engagement, and a number of minority ethnic students who were there reflected what you highlighted in your research. Can you elaborate on any of that?
Professor Bonell: I can say two things on that. One is about the way in which ethnicity aligns with religiosity. Some students will have particular needs because they come from conservative families. They may come from conservative Christian or conservative Muslim families, but that does not mean that they should not receive comprehensive RSE. Our experience from working with schools to deliver RSE is that it is possible for skilled teachers to deliver RSE to students who are of mixed cultural and religious backgrounds. It just needs skill and, sometimes, a little bit of one-to-one work with parents to prepare them and make them understand what RSE will and will not cover. Sometimes, there are myths among parents and among students that make them more concerned than they need to be about RSE.
Handling religion is one aspect. The other could be particular needs among some minority ethnic groups. For example, rates of STIs are higher among some minority ethnic groups in England and, I am sure, in Northern Ireland, compared with those in other groups, so those groups might have particular needs for knowledge that are different from those of other ethnic groups. Those are two of the main factors.
The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Thank you. The other bit of your briefing that I want to draw out — I know that this covers England — is the fact that 8·5% of the students who were surveyed experienced sexual harassment in school. Those are concerning figures. I do not know how that is reflected in Northern Ireland and whether it is comparable.
We heard evidence in a previous week from another academic, who suggested that, for that issue in particular and for violence against women and girls, there is a need for RSE to consider whether there should be focused, specific work with boys especially to address some aspects, such as misogynistic attitudes, that might underpin some of those experiences. Do you have a view on whether there is a space for focused, specific work with boys in that area?
Professor Bonell: Yes, it is very important to address misogynistic attitudes. That falls into two camps. There is a sort of overt misogyny that is fuelled by people like Andrew Tate and can sometimes have a bit of purchase among impressionable young boys. Through our qualitative interviews with teachers and students, we have seen evidence in schools that having debates challenging those misogynistic attitudes — girls are part of those debates too — can be effective in challenging those beliefs. The second area is giving boys an insight into what is and is not acceptable behaviour. Sometimes young boys lack the knowledge and the skills to understand the boundaries of acceptable behaviour, so it is about learning practical skills to avoid that, such as the appropriate way to talk to a girl.
It is also important to remember that it is not just boys' sexual harassment of girls. Sexual harassment in schools can be complex and nuanced. There can be sexual harassment within gender groups as well. Sometimes that has an element of policing sexual identities and a homophobic undercurrent, or it can be overt. It is a complex thing. It is not just boys going around sexually harassing girls, although that is also a very important part of it.
The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Thank you. I have just one last question, and you referenced it briefly in your initial answer to me about parental engagement. You did not flag it directly, but you referenced it when you talked about minority ethnic students, so I want to flag it. I imagine that some of the things that came back from the young people about the topics in your survey would cause some consternation for some parents about whether they are comfortable with those subjects. Do you have a view on how we can navigate that interface between getting good parental engagement and buy-in and reflecting what young people say they want to receive in those lessons?
Professor Bonell: Our trial is of an intervention that has a comprehensive RSE curriculum developed by the Sex Education Forum, which is a UK charity. That intervention is comprehensive and addresses some of the more sensitive areas. We are surprised that we have had little pushback from parents. That is down to the skill of the Sex Education Forum in preparing schools and of schools in preparing parents. Schools tend to send an email to all parents that is clear about what the content of the curriculum will be. That sometimes leads to some students expressing uncertainty and concern. The schools then tend to get the parents in, whether in a Zoom meeting or face to face, and go into detail about what the curriculum will actually involve. Sometimes the titles of those lessons or the topics sound quite stark and could lead one to imagine ridiculous things that might be occurring in the classroom. Those things do not usually come to pass, because RSE is delivered by sensible people who are not trying to be sensationalist or particularly "out there". It is about trying to prepare young people for what they need to know in their adult and, indeed, adolescent lives.
We have had a few parents who have withdrawn their children, but that is usually one or two per school, if that. That has happened in schools across England and where there is great variation in ethnicity and religiosity etc. Things have not been anywhere near as problematic as, we thought at times, they might have been.
Mr Sheehan: Thanks for that, Professor Bonell. There has been a suggestion from some quarters that RSE will lead to a greater sexualisation of children and young people. Have you come across any evidence in your work that would support that assertion?
Professor Bonell: No. There is a huge number of systematic reviews, all of which comprehensively review the evidence, and there is absolutely no evidence that RSE leads to earlier sexual behaviour or riskier sexual behaviour; indeed, it tends to delay the age of sexual debut. Not all trials find that it delays the age of sexual debut, but many do, and none find that it brings it forward.
Mr Sheehan: Thanks for that. Have you noticed any qualitative difference between RSE that external providers deliver and the RSE provided in schools? Have you any information about that?
Professor Bonell: Yes. We have seen differences. There is a debate in the field about whether it is better for sex education to be delivered by external experts or by teachers. I do not fall into either camp in that debate. I think that teacher-delivered sex education can be extremely good, but it has to be when the teacher has volunteered for it, rather than because they are normally a physics teacher and have a gap in their timetable. They have to be adequately trained, and they have to possess the soft skills that allow them to give the lesson effectively.
The advantage of teachers doing it is that they already have a relationship and some sense of trust with the students, and they have an ongoing relationship with the students, so they can be made aware of when a student has particular needs. There is quite a lot of evidence that doing sex education can deepen those relationships and improve the engagement of students. There are lots of plus points but only when the teacher is well equipped to deliver it and is well selected. That said, when a school has the resources to afford external RSE provision, which is often not cheap, it will find that there are several good providers out there. The obvious one is Brook, but there is also the Sex Education Forum etc.
Mr Sheehan: What is the process for training teachers to deliver RSE in schools in England or in the education system in England? Is there a process of continually training teachers to deliver it?
Professor Bonell: No. There is no kind of standard practice at all of making continuing professional development (CPD) available to all teachers. In our trial, the Sex Education Forum delivered a bespoke programme of Zoom-based training for teachers that was well received. Training is a problem nationwide, and a particular problem is that there should be a cadre of teachers who are well equipped to deliver RSE. It might not be their only specialty, but there is a need for a subset of teachers to have received RSE training as part of their initial teacher education. They might be religious studies (RS) teachers or physical education (PE) teachers; they could balance it with other subjects.
Mr Brooks: Thanks very much for your evidence, Professor. I am hearing — we have heard this a lot, and the Chair referred to it last week — that, while there is a spectrum of views on some specific issues, engagement with parents seems to be key across the board. We met the Christian Institute informally yesterday, and I was very much a listener rather than a participant in that meeting. It said something of note, which was that, even among some of the more religious parents, it is a small proportion that would opt out when they have been given the proper information. Sometimes, when we talk about opt-out, we imagine that there will be a horde of people wanting to opt their kids out, but, actually, even in religious communities, that number ends up being rather small; they are just looking for the option. We hear that over and over again.
My question is more technical. You gave the example of two thirds learning about some things and a third learning about other things, and you said that that goes across the whole sample, I guess. Where students say that they are getting information on a particular subject that is not as good as it could be, has there been any analysis of whether there is a difference of opinion among pupils in the same school?
Are there different pupil perceptions of what a school is teaching, even though the pupils are going to the same classes?
Professor Bonell: We could do that analysis, but we have not. It would be easy to do it, and I think that it would show some correlation but not a perfect correlation. That students have been in a classroom where something is covered does not necessarily mean that they will all leave with the same impression of what was covered. Obviously, they will vary enormously in their engagement. That will be affected partly by who they are and how engaged they are generally with lessons and partly by whether they feel that the lesson speaks to them and their needs. Therefore, I think that students in the same classroom could leave it with different impressions of what has been covered. I could run those analyses, and I think that there would be some correlation but not a perfect one.
It might be useful for me to make one other point on when we have had reports from schools about parents wanting to withdraw their children from lessons. The part of RSE in England from which parents can withdraw is that which covers sex rather than relationships, but the parts that parents are often most concerned about are, particularly, either pornography or, more often, LGBTQ+ issues. That is where the schools can often reassure parents, because parents can sometimes imagine that children are going to have lessons about how to be gay or something like that, which, obviously, is not the case. Most of the provision is focused on mutual respect, which is couched very much in terms of whether you are a Christian or a Muslim or gay or straight. It is not about trying to persuade anyone of the rightness of your position or anything like that; it is about mutual respect. Usually, schools find it quite easy to reassure parents about that.
Mr Brooks: In answer to the Chair's question, I think, you covered whether boys should have a separate element. Whether they have a separate element, in my opinion, for what it is worth, it is right to have that discussion. With sectarianism or racism, sometimes, when you build a relationship with and know the person whom you are talking about and are in the room with them, it is much harder to hold some of those attitudes that you talked about. I see no reason why the same would not be true here.
I have one other short question. This is probably not of great relevance, but it is just to understand the point. You said that, in English schools, some of the RSE was being taught in tutor group periods or whatever it was that you referred to. That is not something that I have heard around here. Does England have an equivalent of what we have with learning for life and work (LLW)? Here, that seems to be the natural place and tends to be the natural place. Some people will say that it is better in some places than others, but the natural place for it to sit is in that subject. Does England have an equivalent of that?
Professor Bonell: No. RSE has become a statutory requirement, but there is not a fixed place in the national curriculum for it. Sometimes it is taught in bespoke lessons, which are often what used to be called "personal, social and health education". Sometimes it is in RS, sometimes it is in tutor group and sometimes it is in what are called "drop-down days", where the whole year group comes off the timetable for a day and has mass education where the whole year group is exposed to a lesson, which is pretty poor.
Mrs Guy: Thank you, Professor Bonell, for your evidence. I have a question on the study that you reference in your briefing paper. The cohort was quite young, with year 8 pupils. Is that a continuing piece of work? Will you look at other age groups, or is the study confined to that group?
Professor Bonell: Our design has 50 schools up and down England. We surveyed the pupils in the middle of year 8, when they were 12 to 13. Half the schools randomly received the intervention, and half did not. We are now doing follow-ups. Those pupils are in the first term of year 11 now, which is their GCSE year. We are trying to get a good rate of completion for that work so that we can assess the impacts of our programme.
Mrs Guy: OK, so you are following that group of kids through their education.
Mrs Guy: You noted some of the student-reported priorities for RSE. Will you measure, for comparison, how their priorities may change and shift as they get older?
Professor Bonell: Yes. We will repeat those measures. The reason why we included those measures in the baseline survey was primarily that, in the schools allocated to receive our intervention, the survey was used to inform their practice. Schools had some choice about which lessons they delivered and could tailor that to their students' needs, which built a sense of student ownership and engagement from the beginning.
Mr Martin: Thank you very much, Professor, for your evidence today. I will take you to some of your written evidence. You said:
"Some important topics, such as how to report abuse, how to say no to something sexual that is unwanted, sexual harassment, and the sharing of sexual imagery, were not as well covered for all students as might be expected".
We have heard that a little during our inquiry. We heard evidence on Northern Ireland from the NSPCC. It has two programmes, one called "Talk PANTS" and the other called "Speak out Stay safe". When it came to the Committee, the NSPCC said that that programme is delivered in 93% of schools, but I think that it is now 94% of schools. It is an excellent programme. Is it possible that, by the time young people in Northern Ireland leave primary school, they have been effectively taught how to report abuse and to say no to something sexual that is unwanted? Your evidence is very much based on an English model, but is it possible that here, especially at primary level and in safeguarding, that is being done and done well and that some of the research that you are presenting may be more of an English thing?
Professor Bonell: It is entirely possible that our findings do not apply to Northern Ireland. I have no insights into needs or experiences in Northern Ireland. Maria Lohan at QUB or somebody like that would be a good person to ask.
Mr Martin: It was an interesting session.
I will ask about one other thing that is in your written submission:
"UK qualitative studies have identified RSE provision in schools"
— you said that in your oral evidence today —
"as often heterosexist and sometimes overtly homophobic".
You cited research by Formby and Donovan from 2020. Do you know the size of the sample that that research was based on?
Professor Bonell: It will have been small. Qualitative research always has small samples; it does not try to establish the prevalence or commonness of something. It explores possibilities and accounts, so the sampling is usually developed in order to encompass a breadth of perspectives, but it does not try to be statistically representative.
Mr Martin: OK. No. You were right: it was 120. I read the research.
Professor Bonell: OK. Thank you.
Mr Martin: I seem to spend a lot of my time as an MLA reading academic research, which, I am sure, is not what I signed up for. I was just concerned — to be fair to you, you used the phrase, "qualitative studies" — and wanted to make the point that we see a lot of research in Committee that might lead us to think that some things are incredibly prevalent, unless we read the stuff really carefully and dig behind it. Certainly, in some of these areas, that is the case. In that case, as you noted, the research is qualitative, with a sample of 120, and that comment cannot be rolled out quantitatively across all schools. I see you shaking your head, and I appreciate that.
I have one more quick question. You mentioned an interesting thing in your written evidence:
"Increasing family affluence was linked to greater perceived RSE coverage, as was school commitment."
Will you elaborate on that?
Professor Bonell: We find that in almost all research. There is something in public health and health service research called the "inverse care law" that suggests that the people who most need services often have the least access to them. In this case, it is less that poor kids are in schools that deliver RSE badly, although that might be possible, albeit only a little bit possible and only to an extent, and probably more that poorer kids tend to have lower academic engagement, so, even though they might be exposed to the same lessons, they might get less from those lessons.
That is not to denigrate those children but rather to say that, in general and with RSE, schools need to work harder to engage those students. That points to a need to differentiate between lesson plans for different sorts of students for RSE. Skilled teachers are familiar with doing that. It is all about trying to figure out how, for a mixed-ability class or for a class that is in some way diverse, to make a lesson that reaches the boys, girls, lower-attaining kids and kids who may have SEND issues. Skilled teachers can do that, but it can always be done better.
Mr Martin: That is interesting. Your written evidence uses the words "perceived RSE coverage". In light of that, I have a question. I am not too sure how to frame it, so I will frame it in a black-and-white way. Do you think that, in the course of research, children or young people who may not be happy at school respond to a survey in a certain way? Could there be a situation in which you give them a survey that states, "Are you happy with this subject area?", and, because they associate school with not liking it, they would fill out that survey negatively? Can that happen, and is there any way for researchers to compensate for that bias?
Was that question competent enough for you? Do you see what I am driving at? You could hand out a survey to 1,000 kids. Some of the children may not like school or may have a certain view of the RSE that is being delivered in their school and would therefore answer the survey in a negative way as a result of their biases rather than respond on the basis of how it is being taught?
Professor Bonell: You cannot control for that in any statistical sense, because the data is the data. Researchers try to overcome such problems by asking specific questions. If you ask somebody, "Did you like something?", that invites lots of subjective affect that they may draw on when answering the question. If you keep the questions as factual as possible, however, such as by asking, "Did you experience this aspect of RSE?", you are more likely to get accurate information that is not so biased.
It is a possibility, but I have been in millions of classrooms to oversee that kind of survey, and my sense is that students do not usually have an axe to grind. Most children like school and their teachers, so I think that what you say would apply to a fairly small minority.
Professor Bonell: It is a pleasure.
Mr Sheehan: For accuracy, Peter said that he noticed Professor Bonell shaking his head, but he was nodding his head.
Mr Martin: He was nodding his head. Did I say shaking?
Mr Martin: In another culture, it may be the other way around. Thank you, Deputy Chair. You are absolutely right. I was agreeing with Professor Bonell.
The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): — that is an important distinction to make.
Thank you very much for your evidence, Chris. If it does not place too much of a burden on you, the Committee would be happy to see your study when it is concluded. I presume that the Committee will continue to take an interest in the issue, so please feel free to share it with the Committee when it is available.
Professor Bonell: Will do.
The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Thank you for your time. Your evidence will be factored into our inquiry report. We appreciate your giving up your time this afternoon.
Professor Bonell: Thank you for having me.