Sex Education in Schools

Ok this is a little off the general topic of things but I have just been listening to a programme on the radio about sex education in schools and a local school near me is going to start sex education for children at primary school in Year 6. I think this makes them about 10/11 years old which I think is too young. I believe children have a natural innocence that they grow out of when they are ready. You can't force that. Of course, girls of a certain age need the chat about what is happening to their body. Maybe I am lucky in the fact that chat came from my Mum but I am sure a school nurse or teacher would do a great job too. But that's not about sex, that's about the changes happening to a girl's body to prepare her for future motherhood (hopefully). I clearly remember the day I learnt about the sexual difference between boys and girls. I was in our family bathroom which had never had a lock on it. We used to walk in and out with no bother as children so it had never been needed. The shower screen was glass and I was 12 years old and starting to develop. My brother, 15 months younger than me, came in to the bathroom with his friends to see if he could borrow my camping mat. I screamed the place down and I still remember my brother's bewilderment at why he couldn't come into the bathroom when I was in there just as he had always done. And a lock got fitted on the door soon after that. It was sad in a way, because I was no longer a 'child'. But I didn't need someone at school to teach me that, I learnt it in my own time.

They say teaching children about sex from a young age will stop teenage pregnancy but I don't agree. Will it stop children like Alfie Patten and his girlfriend Chantelle having sex under her parent's roof? Not at all. The fact that a 14 year old girl had sex with at least two boys in her childhood bed with her parents in the house would not be solved by better sex education in schools. She, and I believe her parents, knew exactly what they were doing. I don't know how to solve a problem like that, but it's not going to be done by robbing other children of their innocence before they're ready.