Nationwide protests against LGBT-inclusive education planned for September Activists plan to step up aggressive protests against relationship education in the new school year

Protests opposing LGBT-inclusive education are set to spread nationwide from September, as activists step up their efforts to stop schools teaching about homosexuality.

Schools in Birmingham have faced months of targeted protests from a group of religious campaigners who oppose children learning about sexual orientation and gender identity.

The BBC is set to air a Panorama documentary on Monday exploring the protests that were sparked at Parkfield Primary School in Birmingham, led by a man who has no children at the school.

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Teachers fear the protests may spread across the country, as an organised coalition of activists and “concerned parents” seek to challenge policies at hundreds of schools across the UK.

‘Radical sexualisation’

A network of fringe activist groups such as Stop RSE, Parent Power, The Values Foundation and the School Gate Campaign have been set up over the past year, and campaigners are reportedly preparing to step up protests in September, encouraging parents to challenge the “radical sexualisation of kids” at schools.

The School Gate Campaign, set up by an evangelical Christian mother, claims on its website that teaching children about gay people “hijacks and potentially perverts the course of natural child development.”

Speaking to The Sunday Times, Rob Kelsall of the National Association of Head Teachers warned: “There is a lot of nervousness that if the secretary of state does not get a grip on this issue this summer, we could see protests right across England in the autumn.”

New government guidance on sex and relationship education published in June says that all students should learn about LGBT+ issues by the time they leave secondary school, but leaves it up to headteachers to decide when and how to address the subject.

Misinformation

The Sunday Times has published a letter from more than 80 MPs calling on the government to make the requirements on the issue clearer, alongside the National Association of Head Teachers and National Education Union.

The MPs wrote: “The protests outside schools need to end, and the best way to achieve that is for the government to be absolutely clear on what will be taught.



“At the moment it is far from clear for many parents. The government and the Department for Education have been slow to respond to the misinformation being promulgated among many of our communities by those seeking to undermine relationships education in primary schools.

“If unchecked, the problem will grow, damaging our schools and communities and weakening the recent advancement of equal rights in our country.

“We call on the education secretary to act during the schools’ summer break by mounting a nationwide information exercise for parents, underpinning the introduction of the new relationships education in primary schools — which is crucial for preparing children for life in modern Britain.”