Four-year-olds in English schools are to have lessons in “how we touch our own and each other’s bodies” under the new Relationships and Sex Education (RSE) programme which will become compulsory in September 2020.
The “All About Me” sex education curriculum for Reception (age 4-5) instructs teachers to give children “the opportunity to explore a variety of different touch and feel sensations” and allow them “to decide which they like and dislike.”
Children in this age group will also be taught the names of private parts like “penis and anus (bum) for boys” and “vulva, vagina and anus for girls.”
Teachers are to “encourage the class to shout out and name the private body parts using the correct terms.”
Further, “when it comes to naming female genitals we would like to encourage you to use the term vulva, instead of vagina,” the Reception year curriculum states.
“We would like to encourage girls to own their whole sexual anatomy, including their pleasurable parts rather than reducing it to merely their baby making body parts,” explains the teaching material.
