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Who Protects Our Children? | UK Column Interviews · UK Column Radio

• 0:07
  Speaker 1: Hello, everyone.
• 0:08
  Speaker 2: This is Professor Diane Rasmussen with UK Column. I'm really
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: happy here to be speaking today with Jen Thetford Kay
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: and Kathy Mudge of Protect and Teach. Now, as some
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: of the audience will know, I have spoken with Protect
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: and Teach previously in the past, both on UK Column
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: News and in some of these longer interviews. And Kathy
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: has always been with me, but she luckily has a
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: range of people that she's been working with over time because,
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: as we know, the fight to protect our children from
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: indoctrination and inappropriate sexual content and all of the things
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: that we are speaking about in my role as looking
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: at what's happening in education, as well as the work
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: that parents are doing and the role that people like
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: Kathy and hopefully increasing amounts of teachers will be doing
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: to make sure that our children truly are learning and
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: being protected from some of this harmful nature of the
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: information and inappropriate nature, and in some cases, potentially questioning
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: whether or not this is even legal and appropriate, and
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: certainly not in the sense of safeguarding, it's not appropriate.
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: We'll be looking at these things in a little bit
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: more detail today, and I'm sure that my guests will
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: have much more information than I do. So I again
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: welcome Kathy Mudge again to UK Column. Thanks for being
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: with us again today.
• 1:23
  Speaker 3: Thanks for inviting me.
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: Oh, it's great to have you.
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: Uh, you're always, you're always, despite the content that we
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: talk about and all of the sort of depressing nature
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: of things, you're always smiling and always happy and always.
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: Making a joke. So it's great to speak with you.
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: Um, and now we have for the first time in
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: UK column, we're welcoming Jen Thupford Kay.
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: Jen, thanks for joining us.
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: Uh, I don't know if you want to tell the
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: audience a little bit about yourself.
• 1:48
  Speaker 4: Uh, thank you. Thank you for having me. Um, well,
• 1:51
  Speaker 4: a little bit about me. So my background is in, um,
• 1:55
  Speaker 4: social care. I used to be a registered manager. Um,
• 1:58
  Speaker 4: and then I went and did my teaching and then
• 2:00
  Speaker 4: used to teach, um, health social care. Um, and safeguarding
• 2:05
  Speaker 4: is my number one priority in everything. So, um, I'm
• 2:11
  Speaker 4: quite passionate about, um, reinstalling the, what safeguarding is supposed
• 2:17
  Speaker 4: to be. Let's call it that. Not what it's turned into. Um, and, um,
• 2:23
  Speaker 4: very happy to have joined Protect and Teach.
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: It's great to have you.
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: And I've, I heard you're going to, you're doing some
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: research that will be part of a series of articles
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: written for us at UK Column. So thank you for
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: your time and effort in doing that. I know going
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: through government documents and policies and legislation is a huge
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: amount of work. I know I do it myself. And
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: so thank you for spending the time doing that. It's
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: really helpful. So, uh, so Kathy, uh, As you know,
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: we've been on here before, but maybe you just want
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: to remind the audience a little bit about your background
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: and what led you to do the work that you
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: do with Protect and Teach.
• 3:04
  Speaker 3: Yeah, sure. Well, I used to be a midwife in
• 3:07
  Speaker 3: the NHS and I sort of retired from that. And
• 3:11
  Speaker 3: I started looking at various issues. It was actually around
• 3:15
  Speaker 3: women's single sex issues. And it all started with an
• 3:20
  Speaker 3: issue with toilets becoming unisex in my area. And I
• 3:24
  Speaker 3: investigated that and found that it was an LGBTQ group
• 3:27
  Speaker 3: that had been involved in planning it and no women's
• 3:30
  Speaker 3: groups or religious groups or anything else. And I thought, well,
• 3:35
  Speaker 3: who's this LGBT group? And I followed it up and
• 3:38
  Speaker 3: I found over 100 LGBTQ groups that are going into schools.
• 3:43
  Speaker 3: And that's where I started this work, really. We started
• 3:45
  Speaker 3: the research with that. We got that published in the
• 3:48
  Speaker 3: Telegraph and we sort of went on from there really
• 3:52
  Speaker 3: with parents contacting us, teachers contacting us, some governors contacting
• 3:58
  Speaker 3: us and we carried on researching what was going on
• 4:02
  Speaker 3: in schools, how they were organising it, the amount of money,
• 4:07
  Speaker 3: the huge amount of money, government grants, all sorts of
• 4:10
  Speaker 3: things going on and what they were teaching the children
• 4:13
  Speaker 3: which was the most concerning thing. and who was keeping
• 4:17
  Speaker 3: an eye on it, and it turned out that it
• 4:19
  Speaker 3: wasn't anybody. So we've been doing that for several years.
• 4:23
  Speaker 3: We've been writing letters for parents, sort of challenging schools
• 4:26
  Speaker 3: on what they're doing, because they're going against the Equality Act.
• 4:29
  Speaker 3: They're adding things like gender and non-binary and trans children
• 4:37
  Speaker 3: and stuff like that. None of that is in the
• 4:38
  Speaker 3: Equality Act. So we started challenging that, and as I
• 4:44
  Speaker 3: researched it more... I found that other things were also
• 4:47
  Speaker 3: in the school curriculum. So you're looking at environmentalism, you're
• 4:52
  Speaker 3: looking at critical race theory, critical social justice. So children
• 4:59
  Speaker 3: are having this all being put in their curriculum, basically
• 5:05
  Speaker 3: trying to get the perfect little citizen at the end
• 5:08
  Speaker 3: of it. That's what it's all about. My concerns started
• 5:12
  Speaker 3: rising even more when I began looking at Ofsted and
• 5:15
  Speaker 3: where they were going and more regulations that were coming
• 5:19
  Speaker 3: out for children. It seems as though the point of
• 5:22
  Speaker 3: educating a child seems to be going and the point
• 5:26
  Speaker 3: of having a child that comes out and says all
• 5:28
  Speaker 3: the right things is the focus. And that's what's really concerning.
• 5:34
  Speaker 3: So basically, that's what happened in the last year. is
• 5:39
  Speaker 3: I moved away from just looking at the trans child,
• 5:44
  Speaker 3: as it were, that they were pushing in schools, and
• 5:46
  Speaker 3: LGBTQ that they were pushing in schools, and started looking
• 5:49
  Speaker 3: at a broader aspect of the curriculum, which is where
• 5:53
  Speaker 3: I got involved with Jennifer, and we've got another trustee.
• 5:57
  Speaker 3: We've now set up Protecting Teachers, a community interest company,
• 6:02
  Speaker 3: and we've got Bobby who works with us as well.
• 6:05
  Speaker 3: He's a teacher, so he can bring a lot of
• 6:08
  Speaker 3: the inside knowledge information about what's going on in schools.
• 6:12
  Speaker 3: And we've sort of moved on really to where we
• 6:14
  Speaker 3: are now in the past year. So it's been really busy.
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, certainly has.
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: You know, and I think it's important to broaden it
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: because there are so many different aspects that are sort
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: of being.
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: Imposed on children in this country.
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: And I think everywhere in Western society to this day,
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: I would say as well, though, that although I think
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: that it is important to include all of these things with,
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: you know, the sort of the fear that they're instilling
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: in children that, you know, they're going to die because
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: the global boiling or whatever they're talking about, as well
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: as all the other sort of larger UN, World Economic Forum,
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: UNESCO types of agendas that are being pushed on people.
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: I just published an article recently for an author of
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: ours called Hilda Piotrowski, and she wrote about the Puberty
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: Blocker Trial that is still ongoing which is basically what
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: they're doing is they're giving hormones to children who are
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: prepubescent and tracking over time if they think that they're
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: questioning their gender and asking very detailed questions and looking
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: at their genitals during this course of treatment. And these
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: are children who have not even reached puberty yet. And so,
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: of course, they're not going to be aware of the
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: potential health risks of this, never mind the psychological risks
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: and everything else. So just to say that I'm afraid
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: that I think in a way, in my opinion, I
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: don't know what you think about this, but I think
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: that people thought that when we had the Supreme Court
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: ruling that said women are women and that's the end
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: of the story, the establishment is still pushing back on
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: that and still coming back and saying, no, that is bigoted,
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: that is homophobic, that is transphobic, whatever, and continuing to
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: push this.
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: So we're seeing it still in the universities.
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: And still in the government, obviously, which funds the universities
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: and everything else. So just to say that I think
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: people thought that maybe the fight was starting to end,
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: but I don't see an end to it at this point.
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: I don't know if you agree with that.
• 8:19
  Speaker 3: Well, Jen can probably tell you about this because this
• 8:21
  Speaker 3: is one of our latest projects is the health bill
• 8:24
  Speaker 3: going on through now, which is the puberty blockers. Do
• 8:26
  Speaker 3: you want to chat a bit about that, Jen, with
• 8:29
  Speaker 3: what we've been finding with our research?
• 8:31
  Speaker 4: Yeah, well, we did a bit of analysis on the
• 8:34
  Speaker 4: draft bill for the conversion practices. And when I was
• 8:40
  Speaker 4: looking at what else is going on, we found that
• 8:44
  Speaker 4: the House of Lords were discussing the health bill that's
• 8:47
  Speaker 4: going through. And there's a discussion actually today. And we've
• 8:53
  Speaker 4: fed into, hopefully, what we're going to say in the
• 8:56
  Speaker 4: House of Lords with lots of research. Basically... to look
• 9:02
  Speaker 4: at the age of consent, because, you know, Gillick competence
• 9:07
  Speaker 4: is used frequently, but it's supposed to be... It was
• 9:11
  Speaker 4: initially just for contraception, and then it's been broadened to
• 9:17
  Speaker 4: include this gender whatever. But because, like you say, they've
• 9:23
  Speaker 4: no idea what it's going to do long-term to them,
• 9:26
  Speaker 4: can they really actually consent and... Why are we allowing
• 9:30
  Speaker 4: children to consent to such a thing that they can't
• 9:34
  Speaker 4: possibly understand the ramifications of? So that's going on today
• 9:38
  Speaker 4: in the House of Lords. Fingers crossed there's some sensible
• 9:43
  Speaker 4: people in there. Because when it went through the House
• 9:46
  Speaker 4: of Commons, it just sailed through and amendments were voted down.
• 9:51
  Speaker 4: So we seem to have a slight difference of opinion,
• 9:56
  Speaker 4: let's call it, between the House of Commons and the
• 9:58
  Speaker 4: House of Lords. and the House of Lords are there
• 10:00
  Speaker 4: to scrutinise and I'm very, very glad that they are
• 10:02
  Speaker 4: there to scrutinise and are actually doing that job. I
• 10:08
  Speaker 4: know people have their own opinions but I don't think
• 10:11
  Speaker 4: we should be pushing things on children that they're too
• 10:15
  Speaker 4: young to be able to understand. I mean, at 12,
• 10:18
  Speaker 4: do you really know whether you want children or not? No.
• 10:23
  Speaker 4: Most 12-year-olds have not made that decision. Do you know
• 10:27
  Speaker 4: what it's going to be like to never have a
• 10:30
  Speaker 4: sexual relationship that's mutually pleasurable, if you want to call
• 10:35
  Speaker 4: it that? You have no idea of any of these things.
• 10:41
  Speaker 4: We're hopeful. We're hopeful that the House of Lords can
• 10:45
  Speaker 4: bring some sanity. to that but you know watch this
• 10:48
  Speaker 4: space we have some live trackers on the website so
• 10:54
  Speaker 4: for this bill for the conversion practices bill for the
• 11:00
  Speaker 4: misogyny in schools so we're keeping a track basically of
• 11:05
  Speaker 4: what's going on in the House of Commons House of
• 11:08
  Speaker 4: Lords what ministers are saying publicly that's contradictory to what
• 11:14
  Speaker 4: might be in government papers. So we're keeping a track
• 11:17
  Speaker 4: of all that. So if people are looking to see
• 11:20
  Speaker 4: where things are at, then we might find that useful.
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: Okay, thanks for that.
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: And just for the record, we're recording this on the
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: 22nd of October in case anyone is going back to
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: look at what's happening because this might not go out.
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: It won't go out today, so people can always look
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: back and see what happened. And it seems like when
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: I was looking at the Children and Wellbeing Schools bill, Act,
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: we got Royal Assent earlier this year, that there was
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: a lot of back and forth between the Lords and
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: Commons and that as well. And that's an interesting one
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: because the amount of back and forth that happened where
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: they couldn't seem to agree on these certain points, but
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: when you hear, well, it's for children's well-being, it's for
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: children's schools, it's for education. it's really got a lot
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: more to it. When you look into it, when you
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: look at the, you know, sort of the tracking, the
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: digital ID essentially of children going through the system of
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: tracking it, connecting it with their entire history, that sort
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: of also as well, what I've read about is the
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: ability of choosing your own curriculum for your children, whether
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: you're in a certain type of school or whether your
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: homeschooling has pretty much gone away. Because from my understanding,
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: and you might know more about this than I do,
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: that the national curriculum, which has become more and more indoctrination,
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: less and less teaching subjects and facts, has become mandated
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: everywhere in every sort of school in England, from what
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: I understand.
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: Is that correct, or do you know any more about that?
• 12:51
  Speaker 3: Yes, I mean, it's the other HSE, really, that's been
• 12:53
  Speaker 3: the big problem. That's one of the things that we
• 12:56
  Speaker 3: really focus on. But the new bill, it's gradually coming
• 12:59
  Speaker 3: in over this year. And again, like you say, it's
• 13:01
  Speaker 3: going to make everyone have to have the same curriculum.
• 13:04
  Speaker 3: which again is indoctrination. It's again affecting parents' choice because
• 13:08
  Speaker 3: you can't then look at the school and look at
• 13:10
  Speaker 3: their curriculum and think, well, this sounds interesting. You know,
• 13:13
  Speaker 3: my child's very artistic and they do a lot of
• 13:15
  Speaker 3: that in the school. I'd like to send them. You're
• 13:17
  Speaker 3: now looking at the bog standard, like I say, producing
• 13:20
  Speaker 3: the perfect citizen curriculum that's being pushed around everywhere. I
• 13:25
  Speaker 3: think the issue, like you say, of immediately starting this
• 13:28
  Speaker 3: digital ID on children, they can't get adults to accept it.
• 13:32
  Speaker 3: but it's coming in lower down the track. So a
• 13:35
  Speaker 3: child will go on this register. I've been involved in
• 13:40
  Speaker 3: a meeting with the home educators and they're very concerned
• 13:43
  Speaker 3: about it. Firstly, because you can now involve social workers
• 13:47
  Speaker 3: in it. Now there is a group of people who
• 13:50
  Speaker 3: do not send their children to school, can't be bothered,
• 13:53
  Speaker 3: can't get up in the morning. You know, there's definitely
• 13:55
  Speaker 3: that going on. There's definitely abuse going on. So If
• 13:58
  Speaker 3: you're abusing your child, you don't want the child to
• 14:00
  Speaker 3: go to school if he's got bruises. So there's definitely
• 14:02
  Speaker 3: a cohort. And that cohort's being used, of course, broad
• 14:06
  Speaker 3: spectrum to target all the children. So what that will
• 14:10
  Speaker 3: mean is if you're teaching your child at home and
• 14:12
  Speaker 3: the curriculum says you've got to teach LGBTQ, well, LGB,
• 14:16
  Speaker 3: I mean, you know, obviously Kixie now is actually balancing
• 14:20
  Speaker 3: things up a bit more. But say you, as a
• 14:23
  Speaker 3: religious person, or you don't feel your child's ready to
• 14:26
  Speaker 3: talk about that, you might skip that part of the curriculum. Well,
• 14:30
  Speaker 3: now you see you could be reported to social services
• 14:32
  Speaker 3: for that. So someone could say, you know, we're concerned
• 14:35
  Speaker 3: because you're not talking to your child about, you know, lesbian, gay,
• 14:38
  Speaker 3: bi people. And your argument might not be accepted because
• 14:44
  Speaker 3: you know what happens when social workers get involved, particularly
• 14:47
  Speaker 3: if you've got somebody who's particularly captured or an activist
• 14:50
  Speaker 3: or very young, straight out of university, which you talked
• 14:53
  Speaker 3: about earlier. with all these ideas about what you should
• 14:56
  Speaker 3: be doing, that's a huge interference. And one of the
• 14:58
  Speaker 3: reasons parents have taken their children out is because they
• 15:01
  Speaker 3: want to have more control about what they're teaching them
• 15:04
  Speaker 3: and not have to stick to doing this stuff. And
• 15:07
  Speaker 3: you're very much relying on your child to not say,
• 15:11
  Speaker 3: you know, you know what teenagers are like. Well, my mum,
• 15:14
  Speaker 3: you know, my mum, I'm really cross with her because
• 15:16
  Speaker 3: she won't talk about this. Oh, interesting. So, you know,
• 15:20
  Speaker 3: that's where they're really concerned about. They're a big group, though,
• 15:24
  Speaker 3: and they have to actually conform, which I don't think
• 15:28
  Speaker 3: they're going to do. I think that that will be
• 15:31
  Speaker 3: interesting to see how they, you know, go with it
• 15:34
  Speaker 3: in the future. And of course, again, with this, with
• 15:37
  Speaker 3: the new bill, it's bringing in things like the breakfast
• 15:39
  Speaker 3: clubs and it's bringing in the school uniform. And again,
• 15:45
  Speaker 3: you can talk about school uniform. That's the sort of
• 15:47
  Speaker 3: lecture in itself about the advantage and disadvantage. But part
• 15:51
  Speaker 3: of it is that you can control the school, that
• 15:53
  Speaker 3: you control the children. When they're out of school, people
• 15:56
  Speaker 3: know what school they're from by their uniform. So if
• 15:58
  Speaker 3: they're playing up, they can say, you know, your kids
• 16:01
  Speaker 3: were down, you know, dancing on the statue, you know,
• 16:04
  Speaker 3: down on the town centre in their school uniforms, that
• 16:06
  Speaker 3: type of thing, or causing trouble on the bus. You
• 16:09
  Speaker 3: won't do that if you've all got the same type
• 16:11
  Speaker 3: of uniform. And again, it tends to be going towards
• 16:15
  Speaker 3: no skirts, as you know, from probably some posts and
• 16:18
  Speaker 3: tweets have been going up with schools saying, right, girls
• 16:21
  Speaker 3: aren't allowed to wear skirts at school, which again, you know,
• 16:26
  Speaker 3: it's freedom, freedom of expression that's being affected there. Again,
• 16:31
  Speaker 3: you're taking children away from their parents for longer periods
• 16:33
  Speaker 3: of time. So you're getting them to go to school.
• 16:36
  Speaker 3: So parents aren't even doing breakfast with them, checking they've
• 16:38
  Speaker 3: had something to eat. You're putting them in the breakfast club.
• 16:41
  Speaker 3: You don't know what they mean in the breakfast club.
• 16:43
  Speaker 3: You don't know if they've just had, you know, spoonfuls
• 16:45
  Speaker 3: of jam. And, um, again, uh, you know, that's sort
• 16:51
  Speaker 3: of concerns really.
• 16:54
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah.
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: There's quite a bit there. I know Jen, do you
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: have anything to add on this particular area?
• 17:00
  Speaker 4: Um, we're actually in the middle of writing up, um,
• 17:05
  Speaker 4: an analysis of the new, new rules on homeschool safeguarding,
• 17:10
  Speaker 4: because they seem to be targeting send more than, um,
• 17:15
  Speaker 4: anything else. So special educational needs. where, and they seem
• 17:20
  Speaker 4: to have done that when they put the VAT on
• 17:22
  Speaker 4: the schools as well, because for a lot of parents,
• 17:26
  Speaker 4: it's a battle to get a child the right support.
• 17:31
  Speaker 4: So then they take them out of mainstream and maybe
• 17:33
  Speaker 4: put them in a private school, but then the fees
• 17:36
  Speaker 4: have gone up or some of them have closed. So
• 17:38
  Speaker 4: they're sort of left in a predicament of having to homeschool.
• 17:43
  Speaker 4: But because they have special educational needs, the government have
• 17:46
  Speaker 4: decided that higher up on the priority of safeguarding which
• 17:49
  Speaker 4: they're using safeguarding again as a when people hear the
• 17:53
  Speaker 4: word safeguarding now it's like oh that's that must be
• 17:56
  Speaker 4: legal but not everything that when you say safeguarding is
• 18:00
  Speaker 4: a legal thing it might be guidance it just might
• 18:02
  Speaker 4: be a policy um it's not necessarily a legal requirement
• 18:05
  Speaker 4: but people have that fear like you were saying um
• 18:09
  Speaker 4: so um hopefully that'll be up soon but that's um
• 18:13
  Speaker 4: it's quite interesting that they seem to be targeting the
• 18:16
  Speaker 4: parents and the children who have tried their best to
• 18:20
  Speaker 4: navigate a system that's not really there to support their children. So, interesting, and,
• 18:28
  Speaker 4: you know, I could go on for days about the
• 18:32
  Speaker 4: special educational needs, but it does seem to have detrimentally
• 18:39
  Speaker 4: impacted them and their parents more so than anyone else.
• 18:45
  Speaker 4: You know, there's this labour view that if you go
• 18:48
  Speaker 4: to a private school you must have lots of money
• 18:51
  Speaker 4: which is not the case for a lot of people
• 18:53
  Speaker 4: for a lot of people it's just that the state
• 18:56
  Speaker 4: school wasn't providing what their child needed and the scrimp
• 19:00
  Speaker 4: and the save to send the child there so that
• 19:03
  Speaker 4: they get the right support and now a lot of
• 19:07
  Speaker 4: them are forced into homeschool there's other issues with travel
• 19:11
  Speaker 4: they're cutting back on supporting travelling to school with children
• 19:16
  Speaker 4: with them, so they're forced into being homeschooled because there's
• 19:20
  Speaker 4: no way to get them to a school. So it's
• 19:23
  Speaker 4: all well and good, isn't it, saying, oh, we shouldn't
• 19:25
  Speaker 4: really be homeschooling unless X, Y, Z, but the actual
• 19:29
  Speaker 4: system doesn't work very well. So a lot of people
• 19:33
  Speaker 4: are forced into the homeschool situation. And then you've got
• 19:36
  Speaker 4: the others who, quite rightly, as parents, if you wish
• 19:40
  Speaker 4: to educate your child's you know, in terms of how
• 19:44
  Speaker 4: you believe and what you would like them to know,
• 19:47
  Speaker 4: that's where we sort of crossed a line, somewhere along
• 19:53
  Speaker 4: the history of education, where we've got this, it's not
• 19:56
  Speaker 4: the parents' right, it's the school, and that's not correct.
• 20:00
  Speaker 4: It's the parents. It's their child. And if you wish
• 20:04
  Speaker 4: to teach them a particular thing, then you should have
• 20:07
  Speaker 4: every right to do so. So it's been interesting actually
• 20:10
  Speaker 4: looking into the history of how the school became all-encompassing. Yeah,
• 20:18
  Speaker 4: so we.
• 20:18
  Speaker 3: Plan to do that in our articles, don't we? Have
• 20:21
  Speaker 3: that for you.
• 20:22
  Speaker 4: Yeah, that's very interesting.
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: That will be going into the series of written articles
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: that I mentioned at the start. One thing that I've noticed, though,
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: in the work that I've been doing the past couple
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: of years, because my focus has been a lot on
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: schools in Scotland, and especially residential schools in Scotland. So,
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: just like a lot of other countries, unfortunately, a long
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: history of institutional abuse against children who are put in
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: these residential settings. And what I found, and specifically I
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: was looking at, in this case, the schools under Glasgow,
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: what was the Corporation of Glasgow, but became Strathclyde Regional Council,
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: and then Glasgow City Council, and the Frenethi Residential School case,
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: which is one that I've been working on for a
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: while for the women trying to seek justice for what
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: happened to them at the Frenethi School, is that I
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: actually found documentation, for example, saying that they are under
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: the care of the state, in that case the Glasgow Corporation,
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: when they were at the school and taken out of
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: the control of their parents.
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: So the state is actually acting what they call.
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: A loco parentis, which means in place of the parents,
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: so that whatever happened to them at the school... That
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: is the responsibility of the state for everything, all of
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: the horrible things that happened to.
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: The women when they were there.
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: And that school was open from 1960 to 1991, so
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: a very long time ago, relatively speaking. So this is
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: not just something that has started just very recently. This
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: has been going on for decades, and I'm sure much longer.
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: So I know you've been looking at the history of
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: how all this happened and we'll be going into the
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: detail in your articles, but maybe if you can tell
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: the audience a little bit about the history and what
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: you've learned about how this has come to be what
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: we're seeing now in 2026.
• 22:17
  Speaker 4: Well, it's quite interesting because if you look at each
• 22:23
  Speaker 4: individual piece of what changed and it goes, I've gone
• 22:28
  Speaker 4: back to 1931, which is where um, the thought around
• 22:35
  Speaker 4: looking at the child and being child centric in relation
• 22:39
  Speaker 4: to teaching sort of originated. And if you look at
• 22:42
  Speaker 4: each individual, um, policy change or, um, academic idea that
• 22:48
  Speaker 4: then was brought into policy, don't want to give too
• 22:51
  Speaker 4: many spoilers away. Um, um, individually, they all seem quite reasonable,
• 22:58
  Speaker 4: but then when you, when they all start adding together
• 23:00
  Speaker 4: and start converging, um, Nobody sort of stood back and thought,
• 23:05
  Speaker 4: what happens when all of this has been brought together?
• 23:10
  Speaker 4: And what we've ended up with is basically, you've kept
• 23:14
  Speaker 4: pulling all of these things together to end up with this.
• 23:20
  Speaker 4: Like Cathy was saying, we're modelling a citizen. And that's
• 23:25
  Speaker 4: the goal. We're not educating. We're modelling a citizen, which
• 23:30
  Speaker 4: is a very different... idea of what a school or
• 23:34
  Speaker 4: what education is supposed to be about and it all
• 23:37
  Speaker 4: started quite innocently you know and it was Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• 23:43
  Speaker 4: who you know he didn't like schools as an institution
• 23:48
  Speaker 4: he didn't like them he was very suspicious of society
• 23:51
  Speaker 4: etc and he thought it should be child-centric but his
• 23:56
  Speaker 4: ideas were based on one-to-one learning like tutoring and So
• 24:02
  Speaker 4: when people have sort of taken his ideals, if you like,
• 24:06
  Speaker 4: and tried to apply them in a classroom setting, that's
• 24:09
  Speaker 4: never going to work because his idea wasn't to put
• 24:13
  Speaker 4: children in a classroom. He didn't like schools. He didn't
• 24:16
  Speaker 4: like that. And he also thought girls should be taught
• 24:22
  Speaker 4: to be perfect wives, which, you know, the progressives tend
• 24:26
  Speaker 4: to ignore that little bit of his... thesis when they
• 24:31
  Speaker 4: were talking about how he got us here maybe I
• 24:36
  Speaker 4: think with a lot of these things is bits of
• 24:41
  Speaker 4: them have been cherry picked and put into teacher training
• 24:45
  Speaker 4: and the teachers who are learning have not gone away
• 24:49
  Speaker 4: and thought I'll read what this person actually said they're
• 24:53
  Speaker 4: just absorbing the cherry picked things and then going into
• 24:57
  Speaker 4: a school thinking that they know everything about all these
• 25:01
  Speaker 4: philosophers and why we do this um but they've not
• 25:05
  Speaker 4: actually looked at what the person actually said so i
• 25:09
  Speaker 4: think that's part of the issue the teacher training has
• 25:13
  Speaker 4: been cherry-picked from lots of original good ideas separately we're
• 25:19
  Speaker 4: all fine but all together converge we've ended up sort
• 25:23
  Speaker 4: of um In the situation we're in now, which is
• 25:28
  Speaker 4: not focused on imparting knowledge, it's focused on modelling a
• 25:34
  Speaker 4: child into what we deem is a citizen, which Rousseau
• 25:38
  Speaker 4: would have hated. And that's where the IHSE is a
• 25:44
  Speaker 4: problem too.
• 25:45
  Speaker 3: Because again, you get teachers who, it's usually, people don't
• 25:51
  Speaker 3: like doing this lesson. because it is so vague and
• 25:53
  Speaker 3: it covers so much. So this is where all the
• 25:56
  Speaker 3: third parties are coming in because they're then presenting a
• 25:59
  Speaker 3: whole package, you know, a whole load of slides, a
• 26:03
  Speaker 3: whole load of teacher lessons all set up. And so
• 26:08
  Speaker 3: it means someone can just walk in the classroom, put
• 26:10
  Speaker 3: the slideshow on, sit back and let it go without
• 26:14
  Speaker 3: doing due diligence that they would do if they were
• 26:17
  Speaker 3: told this is your session, you know, you have to
• 26:19
  Speaker 3: arrange what you're going to teach the children. and they
• 26:21
  Speaker 3: go back to their training to present their particular package.
• 26:24
  Speaker 3: It's all done nicely, so it tends to be designated
• 26:27
  Speaker 3: as well with someone who hasn't got a lesson that time.
• 26:32
  Speaker 3: And so they say, oh, could you do it? You know,
• 26:33
  Speaker 3: slides all set up, off you go and do it.
• 26:36
  Speaker 3: And they're introducing a whole load of really contentious things
• 26:39
  Speaker 3: without any challenge. And again, the third part is producing
• 26:43
  Speaker 3: them and not being challenged. And they're just presenting this
• 26:47
  Speaker 3: to the government and saying, look, we can go into
• 26:49
  Speaker 3: schools and we can teach all about they're moving from
• 26:52
  Speaker 3: LGBTQ into misogyny bullying the latest thing that they've got
• 27:02
  Speaker 3: for that is they're supposed to look at misandry as
• 27:05
  Speaker 3: well as misogyny but every single package we see that
• 27:08
  Speaker 3: comes forward it just seems to be based on misogyny
• 27:12
  Speaker 3: and boys being a problem boys being violent men killing
• 27:17
  Speaker 3: women and there's no no balance to that and a
• 27:21
  Speaker 3: big part of what we try and do in Protect
• 27:23
  Speaker 3: and Teach is get the balance so that's why you
• 27:26
  Speaker 3: know as Jen said when she looks at a particular
• 27:28
  Speaker 3: paper and really analyzes it we do also see the
• 27:31
  Speaker 3: good parts of it so we don't just say right
• 27:33
  Speaker 3: this is all rubbish because of this this and this
• 27:35
  Speaker 3: we'll say well this is good but we need to
• 27:38
  Speaker 3: say why are you doing why have you put this
• 27:40
  Speaker 3: in who told you that this was a good thing
• 27:42
  Speaker 3: to do with children we've also got a problem with
• 27:46
  Speaker 3: teachers because we've got a big turnover apparently I've been
• 27:48
  Speaker 3: told they only eat The average career lasts seven years.
• 27:52
  Speaker 3: We also have a group of university students who will
• 27:58
  Speaker 3: go in and teach for several years called Just Teach.
• 28:01
  Speaker 3: And they're not actually teachers. That's not going to be
• 28:03
  Speaker 3: their career, but they're told it will be good for
• 28:05
  Speaker 3: their law degree or their medical degree or whatever they're
• 28:08
  Speaker 3: doing if they go in and teach in a school
• 28:10
  Speaker 3: for a couple of years. So you again have a
• 28:11
  Speaker 3: group coming in straight from university. So highly competitive. motivated
• 28:17
  Speaker 3: to promote all the DEI that they've been basically trained
• 28:20
  Speaker 3: to from school, because you're looking at decades now of
• 28:23
  Speaker 3: this in schools, going straight into schools without having the
• 28:27
  Speaker 3: commitment to the pupil of thinking, these are my pupils now,
• 28:30
  Speaker 3: and I'm going to see them all the way through
• 28:32
  Speaker 3: from when they start at five till they leave me
• 28:34
  Speaker 3: at 11, or when they start at 11 and leave
• 28:37
  Speaker 3: at 18. That's gone now. They know they're going to
• 28:39
  Speaker 3: be there for two years, then they do it because
• 28:41
  Speaker 3: the university will help fund their PhD. and will give
• 28:45
  Speaker 3: them access to the university and access to tutors and
• 28:48
  Speaker 3: access to the library and stuff like that. So there's
• 28:51
  Speaker 3: a financial incentive. And if they run the LGBTQ group
• 28:54
  Speaker 3: at school, they also get a financial benefit of several
• 28:58
  Speaker 3: thousand pounds a year for running that club. So again,
• 29:01
  Speaker 3: there's an impetus on them to then set the club
• 29:04
  Speaker 3: up with the third party from outside and start teaching
• 29:09
  Speaker 3: a child that they possibly gender is a unicorn.
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: Well that's something I'd like to talk about as well
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: because I know you and I Kathy have had discussions
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: about this offline about the curriculum providers because I hear
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: frequently from parents around the country that get in touch
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: with me because they know that I've been working on
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: this for a while and reporting on seeing well I
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: was really not happy with what my children have been
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: taught in school, and then they want to go face
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: the teacher, but then I always try to remind them
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: that it's not necessarily the teacher that is putting this
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: in place. The teachers are basically, I understand correctly, if
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: this is right, that they are sort of being told
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: what they have to teach and how to teach it.
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: and that there's no sort of freedom and creativity in
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: teaching left anymore because it's these sort of curriculum providers
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: like Jigsaw and others that are providing essentially what needs
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: to happen in the classroom and they're just trained on
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: how to do it. Is that a fair assessment of
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: what's going on, do you think?
• 30:17
  Speaker 3: Jen, what do you think?
• 30:20
  Speaker 4: I don't think it's that teachers don't have the creativity
• 30:23
  Speaker 4: and whatever else to do their own lessons. I think
• 30:27
  Speaker 4: it's a time thing. So they don't have time to
• 30:32
  Speaker 4: look into those specific lessons. So the school buys it
• 30:37
  Speaker 4: in from a third party and says, here you are,
• 30:39
  Speaker 4: it's already done for you. And some people are fine
• 30:45
  Speaker 4: with that and they'll just go with it because they
• 30:47
  Speaker 4: don't have time to look into it or give it
• 30:50
  Speaker 4: any real thought, any depth. So you'll go to like
• 30:56
  Speaker 4: a half a day inset day training, teacher training day
• 30:59
  Speaker 4: whatever people want to call it and you'll get told
• 31:03
  Speaker 4: you need to do this, these are the things, embed
• 31:06
  Speaker 4: it into your classes and people will just do that
• 31:09
  Speaker 4: without going off and doing any more some teachers will
• 31:13
  Speaker 4: do other teachers will be like I want to create
• 31:17
  Speaker 4: the lesson myself and do it that way so there
• 31:20
  Speaker 4: are it's such a mixed bag and it really is
• 31:25
  Speaker 4: a postcode lottery in terms of you know whether your
• 31:28
  Speaker 4: particular child's teacher is putting in that extra effort or
• 31:33
  Speaker 4: they don't have the time so they're just covering whatever's
• 31:37
  Speaker 4: been given to them or as a lot of students
• 31:40
  Speaker 4: find they have you know standing teachers teachers that are
• 31:46
  Speaker 4: not supposed to be teaching them but are covering and
• 31:50
  Speaker 4: that happens a lot and there is a high turnover
• 31:53
  Speaker 4: in teaching for lots of different reasons so I think
• 31:58
  Speaker 4: I have taught some students that for the three years
• 32:01
  Speaker 4: prior to me having them, one of them for English,
• 32:06
  Speaker 4: they'd had 20 different teachers and spent a lot of
• 32:10
  Speaker 4: time watching TV because it was just like a substitute,
• 32:15
  Speaker 4: a substitute, a substitute. So they're just filling in, saying,
• 32:19
  Speaker 4: watch this, write something up about this. So they weren't
• 32:23
  Speaker 4: really invested, like Catherine was saying. So you need teachers
• 32:27
  Speaker 4: who are invested in the pupils and want to see
• 32:31
  Speaker 4: them do well. And there are lots of teachers who
• 32:34
  Speaker 4: are out there that do that, but they're also up
• 32:36
  Speaker 4: against it in terms of time and other things. So
• 32:40
  Speaker 4: I think we've got a real mixed bag. It's not
• 32:42
  Speaker 4: necessarily that teachers don't want to be creative and don't
• 32:46
  Speaker 4: have the ability to teach it themselves. If the senior
• 32:49
  Speaker 4: management team are saying, no, here you go, we've bought
• 32:52
  Speaker 4: this in now, this is what we've bought in, so
• 32:54
  Speaker 4: you can all just teach this, then they're just going to, well,
• 32:59
  Speaker 4: fair enough then. Or you've got substitutes replacing that just,
• 33:04
  Speaker 4: we'll just put it on, like I said, just put
• 33:07
  Speaker 4: it on in the room and, you know, any questions,
• 33:11
  Speaker 4: no cracking, let's move on. So I think there's a
• 33:16
  Speaker 4: problem with how education is delivered across the board and
• 33:20
  Speaker 4: what's being taught as well with like go hand in
• 33:26
  Speaker 4: hand but there are serious issues that we've got currently
• 33:29
  Speaker 4: with how things are being delivered in schools um and
• 33:33
  Speaker 4: it's not for the there's a lot i don't want
• 33:36
  Speaker 4: to sort of knocked it there's a lot of brilliant
• 33:38
  Speaker 4: teachers out there fabulous teachers um who are you know
• 33:43
  Speaker 4: overworked and don't have time to really look at the
• 33:46
  Speaker 4: resources that they're putting in front of children I don't
• 33:49
  Speaker 4: really understand what they're putting in front of children. Never
• 33:53
  Speaker 4: really thought about it. Oh, a unicorn, how lovely. How
• 33:57
  Speaker 4: bright and colourful.
• 34:00
  Speaker 3: It's going back to, you know, we talked about books
• 34:02
  Speaker 3: and stuff, Diane, before. And the fact that they are
• 34:05
  Speaker 3: most of the, like you say, we've got the package
• 34:08
  Speaker 3: coming through. You know, here's your slides on one of
• 34:10
  Speaker 3: it and here's the books to go with it. And
• 34:13
  Speaker 3: we've just had a parent contact us And her son,
• 34:18
  Speaker 3: who's in year 11, year 8, sorry, was given a
• 34:23
  Speaker 3: book about lesbians written by a queer black writer. And
• 34:30
  Speaker 3: he basically was really uncomfortable because it was highly sexualised
• 34:33
  Speaker 3: and it talked about them touching each other and stuff
• 34:35
  Speaker 3: like that. And he really didn't like it. And he
• 34:37
  Speaker 3: told his mum it really upset him. She read the
• 34:39
  Speaker 3: rest of the book. And she said, it's the sort
• 34:42
  Speaker 3: of book you wouldn't like to think your teenager was reading,
• 34:45
  Speaker 3: your older teenager, you know, who's reading something they shouldn't.
• 34:48
  Speaker 3: It was that explicit. She was absolutely shocked. And when
• 34:52
  Speaker 3: she challenged the school, none of the teachers had read it. Because,
• 34:56
  Speaker 3: of course, the classics have gone. So, you know, Animal Farm,
• 34:59
  Speaker 3: you know what's in that. You know the rough story.
• 35:01
  Speaker 3: You maybe read it 20 years ago as a teacher.
• 35:04
  Speaker 3: But you know you can give it out to pupils
• 35:06
  Speaker 3: knowing what they're going to be reading. These books, they're
• 35:08
  Speaker 3: being handed out and nobody knows in the school. And
• 35:12
  Speaker 3: when they find out, they're often really shocked at what
• 35:15
  Speaker 3: they see. Because, you know, we had that before with
• 35:18
  Speaker 3: Juno Dawson's book in a school in Plymouth. However, the
• 35:23
  Speaker 3: safeguarding lead wasn't shocked. He, as a man, as an
• 35:26
  Speaker 3: elderly man, he thought it was fine. But it's like
• 35:30
  Speaker 3: all this stuff. So we not only have got the
• 35:32
  Speaker 3: teachers being given stuff to use and they're busy... but
• 35:36
  Speaker 3: also the other extra resources they're given with it. They're
• 35:40
  Speaker 3: not checked by anybody. Nobody's saying, right, who has sent
• 35:42
  Speaker 3: this package out to all schools? So that's another thing
• 35:46
  Speaker 3: we hopefully will get to as we work our way
• 35:48
  Speaker 3: through all this stuff is where in the line it's
• 35:52
  Speaker 3: coming so that hopefully when parties come in, we can say, look,
• 35:55
  Speaker 3: we're really concerned. You're sending out this particular resources to
• 36:00
  Speaker 3: all your schools. The schools are accepting them because often
• 36:03
  Speaker 3: they're free. Because people say this is the best selling
• 36:06
  Speaker 3: LGBTQ book for children. And you'll find out, yeah, bought
• 36:10
  Speaker 3: by who? Bought by people right at the top of
• 36:13
  Speaker 3: all of this in education and sending it down to
• 36:17
  Speaker 3: schools who would never have paid for it. And if
• 36:20
  Speaker 3: they knew what it was, they would never have it
• 36:21
  Speaker 3: in their libraries. But it comes in a nice little
• 36:24
  Speaker 3: neat box. And their curriculum is telling them they need
• 36:28
  Speaker 3: to talk to children about LGB. And of course, the tea.
• 36:33
  Speaker 3: which Kixie is now challenging, isn't it, Jen, don't you think?
• 36:36
  Speaker 3: It's sort of challenging in some ways how.
• 36:40
  Speaker 4: They cover it. Well, I think keeping children safe in education,
• 36:45
  Speaker 4: I can't use the same acronym, has, I think, done
• 36:53
  Speaker 4: a fairly good job. There's still some issues in there,
• 36:56
  Speaker 4: don't get me wrong, but I think... considering it's the
• 37:02
  Speaker 4: Labour government that put it in place. It's not too bad.
• 37:06
  Speaker 4: It's better than the last one. The problem is they've
• 37:11
  Speaker 4: still got this... If you've got an activist teacher, they
• 37:14
  Speaker 4: can get around it. That's the problem. It's not explicitly
• 37:18
  Speaker 4: you can't do... You can't have a child socially transition
• 37:22
  Speaker 4: in school, which I think you just shouldn't, because it's
• 37:27
  Speaker 4: a safeguarding... Going back to safeguarding. The safeguard was for
• 37:30
  Speaker 4: all the other children, and you're supposed to have regard
• 37:34
  Speaker 4: for all of the children in the school. I'm very
• 37:37
  Speaker 4: pleased to see that they've stuck to the biological sex rule,
• 37:41
  Speaker 4: which has got nothing to do with the Supreme Court ruling.
• 37:44
  Speaker 4: We already had legislation that separated bathrooms and shower rooms
• 37:50
  Speaker 4: in schools for children in England. It's from age 8
• 37:56
  Speaker 4: and up for toilets and 11 and up for showers.
• 37:59
  Speaker 4: In Scotland, it's actually from primary school and up, because
• 38:02
  Speaker 4: there was a recent court case. I think in Ireland,
• 38:05
  Speaker 4: it's from six and up. So we already had legislation
• 38:08
  Speaker 4: that separated children in bathrooms and biological sex. So I'm
• 38:14
  Speaker 4: very pleased that that's now black and white in keeping
• 38:18
  Speaker 4: children safe in education, that even if a child decides
• 38:21
  Speaker 4: they want to call themselves Polly, and they're actually Paul,
• 38:26
  Speaker 4: they're not allowed in the girls' bathrooms. And the school
• 38:29
  Speaker 4: should not be letting them in the girls' bathroom or
• 38:32
  Speaker 4: changing rooms. It's for biological sex only. So yes, although
• 38:37
  Speaker 4: there's some areas still to improve, I do want to
• 38:41
  Speaker 4: say they have improved on the last one where it
• 38:45
  Speaker 4: was so ambiguous and schools were just basically teaching Stonewall
• 38:50
  Speaker 4: law and letting children do whatever they wanted. So it's
• 38:52
  Speaker 4: a big improvement.
• 38:54
  Speaker 3: Yes, because Stonewall is the base of this, because they
• 38:57
  Speaker 3: issued loads of guidance for schools, junior schools and senior schools,
• 39:01
  Speaker 3: on how to treat trans children, basically, as they called them.
• 39:07
  Speaker 3: And now, of course, Stonewall is sort of slipping down
• 39:10
  Speaker 3: in popularity, but these groups, these 100-plus groups that we've got,
• 39:15
  Speaker 3: they're actually still pushing the agenda. And again, they're, like
• 39:18
  Speaker 3: I say, moving into the bullying and the other.
• 39:21
  Speaker 4: Side of it.
• 39:21
  Speaker 3: But again, the Keeping Children Safe in Education, when that
• 39:24
  Speaker 3: that came out but again for all of these documents
• 39:27
  Speaker 3: they actually put these out to consultation so the government
• 39:31
  Speaker 3: actually say ask the people to cut to cook to
• 39:34
  Speaker 3: talk about what they're presenting and i don't know about
• 39:37
  Speaker 3: you jim but my criticism is it it's easy in
• 39:40
  Speaker 3: a way to do once you're on the on the
• 39:42
  Speaker 3: forms and you can add to the consultation so you
• 39:44
  Speaker 3: can say as a parent you know what your concerns
• 39:47
  Speaker 3: are about various things but it really is um very
• 39:51
  Speaker 3: complicated speech isn't it jen it isn't easy yes and
• 39:54
  Speaker 3: no's so it really often people need to have been
• 39:58
  Speaker 3: in education and whatever to respond to some of these
• 40:00
  Speaker 3: things which i think is a great shame but that's
• 40:04
  Speaker 3: what you do you can respond you can write stuff
• 40:07
  Speaker 3: you can say this is why we do we think
• 40:10
  Speaker 3: that this particular issue would be a problem if you
• 40:12
  Speaker 3: brought it in and look a lot of groups it
• 40:15
  Speaker 3: wasn't just us a lot of other groups did also
• 40:17
  Speaker 3: send in their response to keeping children safe in education
• 40:20
  Speaker 3: before it's published and i i do think that that's
• 40:23
  Speaker 3: showing um i think it probably started with the conservatives
• 40:27
  Speaker 3: because we were campaigning a lot with the conservative party
• 40:30
  Speaker 3: about changing this and i they then drew it up
• 40:34
  Speaker 3: and they actually had it drawn up but it was
• 40:36
  Speaker 3: labor that actually introduced it so sort of sat what
• 40:39
  Speaker 3: for a year i think didn't it was supposed to
• 40:41
  Speaker 3: be released and then it was sat for a year
• 40:43
  Speaker 3: while labor debated whether they could really release it or
• 40:46
  Speaker 3: not but they.
• 40:46
  Speaker 2: Did So if I could just go back a bit
• 40:51
  Speaker 2: as well to a specific example we were talking about.
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: You talked about the year eight student earlier, Kathy.
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: And I think this was, I believe this might have
• 40:59
  Speaker 2: been the parent I put in contact with you recently,
• 41:02
  Speaker 2: if I'm understanding it correctly.
• 41:05
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 41:05
  Speaker 2: So I'll just, I'll just have some, I have some
• 41:08
  Speaker 2: notes about this because I think just to make it
• 41:11
  Speaker 2: come alive for people who might not entirely understand the
• 41:15
  Speaker 2: severity of some of the things that we're dealing with.
• 41:17
  Speaker 2: As we said, this was for a year eight student
• 41:20
  Speaker 2: in English Lit curriculum.
• 41:22
  Speaker 4: And this.
• 41:24
  Speaker 2: Child was being told to partake in reading out loud
• 41:28
  Speaker 2: in class and considering the nature of the content.
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: Obviously, the parent became concerned. And the.
• 41:36
  Speaker 2: Name of the book was Clap When You Land. And
• 41:41
  Speaker 2: what she said was not even also about the lesbian content.
• 41:46
  Speaker 2: personal lesbian relationship in the book, but also that there
• 41:49
  Speaker 2: was an attempted rape scene in the book, according to
• 41:53
  Speaker 2: Common Sense Media, which was the source that she quoted
• 41:57
  Speaker 2: to me. And some of the notes that she got
• 42:00
  Speaker 2: from that particular website about the book was saying that
• 42:05
  Speaker 2: someone attempted to rape someone on the beach during a
• 42:08
  Speaker 2: storm and she was rescued before it happens. It discusses
• 42:12
  Speaker 2: plane crash, grief, rape, sexual assault, trafficking, And these are
• 42:17
  Speaker 2: year eight students, so they might only be 11 or 12,
• 42:21
  Speaker 2: 13 years old, and being told to read this out
• 42:24
  Speaker 2: loud in the classroom.
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: And then she was asked by her child, what is rape?
• 42:30
  Speaker 2: And so that conversation had to happen just because of
• 42:34
  Speaker 2: something that was put in front of the child in
• 42:38
  Speaker 2: an English class. So, you know, we're not talking just about...
• 42:42
  Speaker 2: I think one of the things that I've encountered... is
• 42:46
  Speaker 2: that it's not just about the LGBT or what you
• 42:49
  Speaker 2: think about different sexualities or genders. It's about sexual content
• 42:54
  Speaker 2: in general. It's about violent content. It's about very graphic content.
• 42:58
  Speaker 2: I think we get into trouble if we start to
• 43:02
  Speaker 2: focus too much on the trans and the homophobia because
• 43:06
  Speaker 2: then we think that we're Against those people like I
• 43:09
  Speaker 2: have no issue with any grown-up who's of age reading
• 43:13
  Speaker 2: what they want doing what they want That is not
• 43:15
  Speaker 2: the point the point is the nature of the content
• 43:19
  Speaker 2: and not being children not being ready for it Whether
• 43:21
  Speaker 2: or not it's trends or anything else I think that's
• 43:24
  Speaker 2: also an important point to make which is good Kathy
• 43:26
  Speaker 2: to hear that you're kind of expanding your work into
• 43:29
  Speaker 2: these different areas because I'm hoping that maybe that will
• 43:32
  Speaker 2: make people a.
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: Little bit more aware of What we're what.
• 43:36
  Speaker 2: We're facing when we try to get this shut down
• 43:40
  Speaker 2: in schools, basically.
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: Does that make sense?
• 43:44
  Speaker 3: They call it book burning or whatever. Are you burning
• 43:46
  Speaker 3: or whatever? No, we just want to move into the
• 43:48
  Speaker 3: adult section. Full stop.
• 43:50
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 43:50
  Speaker 3: You know, if you want to read that, you know,
• 43:53
  Speaker 3: over 16, I suppose, for some books, some of them
• 43:56
  Speaker 3: are adults. Same with Juno Dawson. That's fine. Read it
• 43:59
  Speaker 3: as an adult, but don't put it in a children's
• 44:01
  Speaker 3: library because it was graphic. So it wasn't so much that,
• 44:04
  Speaker 3: like you say, that it was a gay man. and
• 44:07
  Speaker 3: gay sex, it was the graphic description of it all
• 44:11
  Speaker 3: that made it so much worse in childish language, calling
• 44:15
  Speaker 3: it things like poo-poo, you know?
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: So, yeah.
• 44:20
  Speaker 2: And that's one of the things that they, the way
• 44:22
  Speaker 2: they used to get around this is they, they use
• 44:25
  Speaker 2: reading levels for age descriptions. So if you look at
• 44:29
  Speaker 2: Amazon and you'll see, well, this is for ages, you know,
• 44:33
  Speaker 2: seven to 10. It's because of the words that they use.
• 44:36
  Speaker 2: It's not because of the content. It's because of the
• 44:38
  Speaker 2: vocabulary and the sentence structure that's supposed to be appropriate
• 44:41
  Speaker 2: for the average reading level for that age of child.
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: It's not about the contents.
• 44:48
  Speaker 2: And a lot of people have asked, well, why is
• 44:51
  Speaker 2: that different from a video game or a film or
• 44:54
  Speaker 2: music where that's rated on content when you look at
• 44:58
  Speaker 2: a film rating, for example? But for books, it's not
• 45:01
  Speaker 2: treated that way at all.
• 45:04
  Speaker 4: Sorry, just after that. You just reminded me of a
• 45:08
  Speaker 4: very important point. With RSHE for the sex education bit,
• 45:13
  Speaker 4: parents have a right to withdraw their child for those parts,
• 45:16
  Speaker 4: but you can't withdraw your child from English. It's a mandatory.
• 45:20
  Speaker 4: So this is the problem. People think, well, sex education,
• 45:24
  Speaker 4: I don't want them to know those graphic things. I
• 45:27
  Speaker 4: might withdraw my child. But it's coming into all the
• 45:31
  Speaker 4: other topics where you can't. do that and if you're
• 45:34
  Speaker 4: not aware like what are your children reading they could
• 45:38
  Speaker 4: still be exposed to all these things even though you've
• 45:41
  Speaker 4: withdrawn them for from the sex ed part of irish
• 45:43
  Speaker 4: he so i think that's part of the issue that
• 45:47
  Speaker 4: it's it's going across the whole curriculum it's not just
• 45:50
  Speaker 4: in a specific session it's they're embedding it everywhere so
• 45:54
  Speaker 4: um it's really important i think that you pay attention
• 45:57
  Speaker 4: to what is being taught to your child not just
• 46:00
  Speaker 4: in like that particular lesson on all lessons, because lots
• 46:04
  Speaker 4: of things are creeping in across the curriculum in different subjects. So, sorry,
• 46:10
  Speaker 4: it was just that you didn't know.
• 46:12
  Speaker 3: It's like the other things we look at, things like
• 46:14
  Speaker 3: environmental activism. Like you say, children are worried about... I've
• 46:20
  Speaker 3: seen reports about children being worried about the future because
• 46:23
  Speaker 3: of what they're taught. So that's fine. You might believe that,
• 46:26
  Speaker 3: you know, the coal or whatever and oil or whatever...
• 46:31
  Speaker 3: ruining the atmosphere and you can talk about that in
• 46:34
  Speaker 3: school but you have to do the other side so
• 46:36
  Speaker 3: you have to say however these people believe this this
• 46:40
  Speaker 3: and this so the child then has the opportunity to
• 46:43
  Speaker 3: decide now it might decide to agree with you and
• 46:46
  Speaker 3: say no it's definitely we you know we must go
• 46:49
  Speaker 3: green on all our energy another child might think well
• 46:52
  Speaker 3: actually it sounds great but we you know that you
• 46:56
  Speaker 3: know we don't have enough windmills at the moment so
• 46:58
  Speaker 3: what are we going to use instead So that's what
• 47:00
  Speaker 3: we want, is just to bring the balance in. Same
• 47:03
  Speaker 3: with everything, is to bring the balance in. So we're
• 47:05
  Speaker 3: not saying you can never talk about sex, but you
• 47:09
  Speaker 3: have to talk about it in a balanced way. So,
• 47:12
  Speaker 3: and again, going back to your stuff, Jen, a lot
• 47:15
  Speaker 3: of it is very explicit. So people talk about things like,
• 47:18
  Speaker 3: one of the things is, you know, strangulation during sex. Now,
• 47:24
  Speaker 3: you could debate that. You could say you mustn't talk
• 47:26
  Speaker 3: about it at all to a child. They must never
• 47:28
  Speaker 3: know about it. Or you could say, you could talk
• 47:30
  Speaker 3: about it, but you could say this is the dangers
• 47:32
  Speaker 3: of it. And so far from the education we've seen,
• 47:34
  Speaker 3: we've never seen the dangers of it and the damage
• 47:37
  Speaker 3: it can do. You know, because obviously death is one
• 47:40
  Speaker 3: of the things, but also it can cause brain injury
• 47:43
  Speaker 3: and all that sort of stuff. And that's not discussed.
• 47:45
  Speaker 3: And it's sort of, again, with lots of other sexual acts,
• 47:49
  Speaker 3: that's where we are. That's where we're concerned. It's not
• 47:53
  Speaker 3: a speciality. There are other groups looking at it. But
• 47:55
  Speaker 3: it's something that comes up regularly to us with parents saying,
• 47:57
  Speaker 3: you know, they were told this in sex. Sort of
• 48:00
  Speaker 3: like anal sex, all about anal sex. And they're not
• 48:04
  Speaker 3: taught the other aspects of it. You know, that it's,
• 48:07
  Speaker 3: you know, the female aspect of it and stuff like that.
• 48:10
  Speaker 3: So again, it's not that we're saying you can never
• 48:13
  Speaker 3: touch on this. You have to have the balance. And
• 48:17
  Speaker 3: it has to be age. Because a lot of this
• 48:19
  Speaker 3: is being discussed far too young with children. That's what
• 48:22
  Speaker 3: parents are bringing back to us.
• 48:27
  Speaker 2: You reminded me, unfortunately, of Fifty Shades of Grey. Sorry,
• 48:30
  Speaker 2: just a little bit of a side note there. Because
• 48:32
  Speaker 2: I remember when that came out and everyone talking about
• 48:37
  Speaker 2: how sexy it was. Of course, I was an adult
• 48:39
  Speaker 2: at that time, so I read it and I thought,
• 48:41
  Speaker 2: this is not interesting at all just because the writing
• 48:44
  Speaker 2: is terrible. So just to throw that in there, I remembered, like,
• 48:48
  Speaker 2: why is this? Because I know that was such a
• 48:50
  Speaker 2: trend and they made films and all this, but just
• 48:53
  Speaker 2: something that really did not Yeah, I still look back
• 48:58
  Speaker 2: at that time period when that was so popular and
• 49:00
  Speaker 2: wonder how these things became so popular. And with women
• 49:03
  Speaker 2: as well, because the writing was so bad. Anyways, that's
• 49:06
  Speaker 2: a side note as just a librarian's review. Speaking of libraries,
• 49:12
  Speaker 2: I want to come back to that as well, because
• 49:15
  Speaker 2: as UK column viewers will know, I have a background
• 49:19
  Speaker 2: as a librarian. And last time we spoke and interviewed Kathy,
• 49:23
  Speaker 2: we spoke about Queer Fest in Exeter Library. And so
• 49:28
  Speaker 2: I would like to hear from you, maybe give the audience,
• 49:31
  Speaker 2: in case they didn't see our interview from last year,
• 49:33
  Speaker 2: just a bit of background and kind of where it
• 49:35
  Speaker 2: ended up, because they think Things were still going on
• 49:38
  Speaker 2: at that point when we did our interview last year.
• 49:42
  Speaker 3: Yes, basically Exeter Library said that it would be having
• 49:47
  Speaker 3: a queer fest for children of all ages. So that
• 49:51
  Speaker 3: immediately raised warning signals for us. And we challenged it.
• 49:56
  Speaker 3: So we challenged it before we went up. We wrote,
• 49:58
  Speaker 3: we went in to see them. We were reassured that
• 50:01
  Speaker 3: this would be at the back of the library and
• 50:04
  Speaker 3: that children wouldn't be allowed in. and it was very
• 50:09
  Speaker 3: much for teenagers sort of thing, so it still really
• 50:12
  Speaker 3: concerned us. We didn't go on the day, but a
• 50:14
  Speaker 3: couple of counsellors from Exeter Council went and took all
• 50:17
  Speaker 3: the photos for us, just probably because if we'd gone in,
• 50:21
  Speaker 3: because they recognised us by then, we would have probably
• 50:23
  Speaker 3: been thrown out. And it was awful because it was
• 50:26
  Speaker 3: actually in the main foyer of the university, so basically
• 50:29
  Speaker 3: children from the age of eight can go to a
• 50:31
  Speaker 3: library unsupervised. So a lot of parents would drop a
• 50:35
  Speaker 3: child off in town and say, right, you go to
• 50:37
  Speaker 3: the library. I'm going to go to Boots or whatever
• 50:39
  Speaker 3: and I'll come pick you up in a minute. And
• 50:41
  Speaker 3: that child would have walked in to a whole load
• 50:43
  Speaker 3: of tables which were displaying basically all sorts of stuff
• 50:48
  Speaker 3: to do with being gay, being trans, mental health, rainbows everywhere.
• 50:55
  Speaker 3: But the worst thing was there was a table which
• 50:57
  Speaker 3: was actually designed to look at.
• 51:03
  Speaker 3: Alternative sort of advice on sex and it had a
• 51:08
  Speaker 3: measure there so you could measure your condom size so
• 51:11
  Speaker 3: it had a dildo a purple dildo and a card
• 51:14
  Speaker 3: measuring system so you could work out what size condom
• 51:17
  Speaker 3: you needed the lighthouse I think it was that was
• 51:20
  Speaker 3: running that table there was also a clitoris so you
• 51:24
  Speaker 3: basically got an eight-year-old child who could have potentially walked
• 51:26
  Speaker 3: through the door they'd been met by some people it
• 51:30
  Speaker 3: was very dubious who was there and running it They'd
• 51:33
  Speaker 3: have been met at the door with all the rainbow
• 51:35
  Speaker 3: lanyards and the pictures and the sweets. And the worst
• 51:38
  Speaker 3: thing was there was a store asking for details. And
• 51:42
  Speaker 3: you went on a QR code. No one has yet
• 51:44
  Speaker 3: told us where all those details were going and whether
• 51:47
  Speaker 3: a child with a phone could have gone on there
• 51:49
  Speaker 3: and had their details, the link go through. And in return,
• 51:54
  Speaker 3: there were free sweets there. So obviously we complained about this.
• 51:58
  Speaker 3: We complained about the fact that They shouldn't have been
• 52:01
  Speaker 3: holding it where they held it, the day they held it.
• 52:03
  Speaker 3: They've got other rooms there. They could have held it
• 52:06
  Speaker 3: in a back room. They could have held it upstairs
• 52:08
  Speaker 3: as a meeting room so the children would never have
• 52:10
  Speaker 3: been involved. But if they wanted to go to the
• 52:12
  Speaker 3: children's library, they walked through the whole thing and saw
• 52:14
  Speaker 3: it all. The play area was right behind the table
• 52:19
  Speaker 3: with all the dildos and everything on and the condoms.
• 52:22
  Speaker 3: So when you were playing colouring in, that was your
• 52:24
  Speaker 3: view as you were colouring in on the table behind.
• 52:27
  Speaker 3: And they had a singer singing about Femtonil, F-E-M-tonil, rather
• 52:34
  Speaker 3: than F-E-N, to know the drug, and how wonderful Femtonil is.
• 52:39
  Speaker 3: What a child of about 10 is just going to
• 52:42
  Speaker 3: hear the word Fentanyl, how wonderful Fentanyl is. It was
• 52:45
  Speaker 3: just a whole, it was an absolute mess, really. We
• 52:49
  Speaker 3: did complain. We'd been through the council. We're still, a
• 52:51
  Speaker 3: year later, a year later, it's still not resolved. It
• 52:55
  Speaker 3: wasn't seen as a safeguarding issue. It was seen that
• 53:01
  Speaker 3: the library hadn't done anything wrong. Everything was lost. All
• 53:07
  Speaker 3: the sound stuff and the video recordings were lost. And
• 53:10
  Speaker 3: then all of a sudden they were found again for
• 53:13
  Speaker 3: the day, you know, security cameras. It's just been a
• 53:15
  Speaker 3: total mess. The police wouldn't take it seriously because basically
• 53:19
  Speaker 3: you're not supposed to. So like if you have a
• 53:21
  Speaker 3: sex shop, children are not allowed in a sex shop
• 53:24
  Speaker 3: and it's very clear on the door that it's a
• 53:26
  Speaker 3: sex shop and children cannot go in this was basically
• 53:29
  Speaker 3: the sort of stuff you get at a sex shop
• 53:32
  Speaker 3: but with no warning for children and no way for
• 53:34
  Speaker 3: the children to not walk through it which they would
• 53:37
  Speaker 3: have had if they tucked it away somewhere um so
• 53:41
  Speaker 3: yes so we're going on from there I've written again
• 53:43
  Speaker 3: now it was run again this year they haven't called
• 53:46
  Speaker 3: didn't call it the queer fest I think they called,
• 53:50
  Speaker 3: I can't remember what the name they gave it, but
• 53:52
  Speaker 3: they've run it again in Exeter. We tried to stop it.
• 53:59
  Speaker 3: We said, why are you running it again? Why are
• 54:02
  Speaker 3: you funding this for teenagers? Who is targeting teenagers to
• 54:06
  Speaker 3: talk to them about their sexuality? Why are you bothering?
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: Just leave it.
• 54:12
  Speaker 3: Why are you funding it? But they wouldn't have it anyway.
• 54:16
  Speaker 3: So basically someone went again for us this year and
• 54:20
  Speaker 3: it wasn't in the main foyer. It was actually further
• 54:22
  Speaker 3: back in the library. But firstly, there was no age checks.
• 54:27
  Speaker 3: They said that they do age checks, but this person
• 54:30
  Speaker 3: went in with their teenager and no one said, oh,
• 54:32
  Speaker 3: how old is your teenager? So they had no idea
• 54:34
  Speaker 3: how old that teenager was when they went in. There
• 54:38
  Speaker 3: were two small children there aged six years old. Now
• 54:41
  Speaker 3: they were with a parent who was running one of
• 54:44
  Speaker 3: the stalls. But again, you have to ask if you've
• 54:48
  Speaker 3: got that sort of stuff going on, you know, is
• 54:51
  Speaker 3: that a safeguarding risk that you take your children along?
• 54:54
  Speaker 3: I mean, you know, say you're a condom seller. That's
• 54:57
  Speaker 3: your job. You go around selling condoms. Do you have
• 54:59
  Speaker 3: your six-year-old trailing with you as you get all your
• 55:01
  Speaker 3: condoms out to show to the shop who wants to
• 55:03
  Speaker 3: buy them? I don't think so. They have the old
• 55:07
  Speaker 3: gender unicorn workshop. Well, that's from America. And again, that's
• 55:12
  Speaker 3: to do, the child colours it in, And it teaches
• 55:16
  Speaker 3: gender identity as a fact. And the gender unicorn has
• 55:20
  Speaker 3: just been, you know, everyone's like, oh, no, not the
• 55:23
  Speaker 3: gender unicorn. For years now, people have said how awful
• 55:25
  Speaker 3: that particular thing is. And there it was as a
• 55:28
  Speaker 3: colouring workshop, a worksheet for children to either colour in
• 55:31
  Speaker 3: there or take away. And then they also had a
• 55:35
  Speaker 3: science competition, which, again, didn't believe in real biology. And
• 55:39
  Speaker 3: that was for under 12 year olds. And that was run.
• 55:42
  Speaker 3: by a group called PRISM, which is connected with the
• 55:45
  Speaker 3: university that believes in all this non-binary and all this
• 55:48
  Speaker 3: sort of stuff and that biology isn't real really. So
• 55:55
  Speaker 3: it was more or less the same stuff again. So
• 55:58
  Speaker 3: here we are back in the same place again. There's
• 56:01
  Speaker 3: lots of stuff going on with the counsellors. One of
• 56:04
  Speaker 3: them said he was supporting safeguarding. It's all sort of
• 56:09
  Speaker 3: a whole load of people are challenging each other. They
• 56:12
  Speaker 3: basically wanted to go away and it might have gone
• 56:15
  Speaker 3: away if they hadn't decided to do it again another year.
• 56:19
  Speaker 3: So here we are. This is the third year. Third
• 56:22
  Speaker 3: year and they still, they get all this pushback. They
• 56:26
  Speaker 3: get reported in the press. It goes into social media
• 56:30
  Speaker 3: and yet still the next year. Again, it's this... This
• 56:34
  Speaker 3: attitude of the safeguarding, like you say, Jen, just nobody
• 56:39
  Speaker 3: does it. It's just you may as well not say
• 56:41
  Speaker 3: the word anymore because people just never, never consider it
• 56:44
  Speaker 3: when they're doing this sort of stuff.
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: That's great.
• 56:51
  Speaker 2: It's really helpful just to have these specific examples. And
• 56:55
  Speaker 2: I think as difficult as they can be for some
• 56:57
  Speaker 2: of us, including myself, to talk about them, I think
• 57:00
  Speaker 2: that's the only way to get people really aware of
• 57:02
  Speaker 2: what's happening so that we know the seriousness of what
• 57:05
  Speaker 2: we're dealing with. So, Kathy, I don't think you ever
• 57:08
  Speaker 2: have a problem with that, but you have a medical background,
• 57:10
  Speaker 2: so you're probably much better at that.
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: Than I am.
• 57:15
  Speaker 2: So unfortunately, we're just out of time here, but I
• 57:19
  Speaker 2: did want to give everyone a bit of a preview,
• 57:22
  Speaker 2: if we can, about the series of written articles that
• 57:25
  Speaker 2: you'll be doing for UK Column over the next couple
• 57:28
  Speaker 2: of months. So I know we're not completely there yet
• 57:32
  Speaker 2: with the plan, but I think it's good to get
• 57:34
  Speaker 2: people interested and looking forward to them. So Jen, if
• 57:38
  Speaker 2: you want to maybe just give us a bit of
• 57:40
  Speaker 2: an overview of what you're planning to put in those articles.
• 57:44
  Speaker 4: Yeah, we're aiming for a six-part series. So it's starting
• 57:49
  Speaker 4: off really with who decided what schools are for. So
• 57:54
  Speaker 4: how did they get from what they originated as to
• 57:57
  Speaker 4: what they are now? So that's looking at the origins
• 58:04
  Speaker 4: and how it transmitted to where we're at now. Looking
• 58:07
  Speaker 4: at the philosophers that influenced academia, that influenced policymakers, that
• 58:14
  Speaker 4: influenced the government. So it's not just that one thing,
• 58:18
  Speaker 4: it's a combination. And then we've been talking about safeguarding.
• 58:22
  Speaker 4: So we're looking at what safeguarding actually means. When did
• 58:26
  Speaker 4: the term itself become a legal term? definition because when
• 58:31
  Speaker 4: it was first put in place by the government they
• 58:35
  Speaker 4: didn't have a definition of safeguarding so they used safeguarding
• 58:40
  Speaker 4: but had no definition so you had Ofsted inspectors coming
• 58:44
  Speaker 4: up with their own so keep tuned for that one
• 58:48
  Speaker 4: if you're interested they were looking at this whole school
• 58:54
  Speaker 4: approach you know the the holistic, we've got to do
• 58:57
  Speaker 4: a whole school approach to everything there's global little citizens
• 59:02
  Speaker 4: in the whole school, everything's all together and there's people
• 59:05
  Speaker 4: involved in that and that's the you know the mental
• 59:08
  Speaker 4: health that's now part of school um really much very
• 59:13
  Speaker 4: much part of school the actual physical health nutrition um
• 59:18
  Speaker 4: culture ethics behavior like everything in the whole school um
• 59:25
  Speaker 4: and then we're looking at who is actually teaching our children? So,
• 59:32
  Speaker 4: you know, where did they get the information, teacher training-wise?
• 59:38
  Speaker 4: And where are they getting the external resources? So where
• 59:43
  Speaker 4: is this information coming from that is being taught to
• 59:45
  Speaker 4: our children, et cetera? Then we're going to look a
• 59:50
  Speaker 4: little bit about, I think we've mentioned this sort of
• 59:53
  Speaker 4: in this conversation briefly, where is the line which is
• 59:57
  Speaker 4: an interesting one, between a parent and the state. Because
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 4: obviously we don't want a child to be neglected, abused,
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 4: whatever else. You'd expect the state to step in. But
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 4: where is that line? Because that line's sort of gone
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 4: a little bit further than just stepping in if a
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 4: child is being neglected or abused. So we're looking at
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 4: where that line is and where we think it should be,
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 4: but where it currently is. and where we think it's
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 4: all going which I think Kathy's very much looking forward
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 4: to talking to the where we're heading now where we're
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 4: heading next what can we do also I think is
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 4: for me really important because in order to sort of
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 4: progress something you have to see how we got here
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 4: and I think that's quite an important thing for people
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 4: to sort of understand this is how we got here
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 4: it's not just somebody didn't just make a white magic
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 4: wand so this is how it is now or create
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 4: an evil plan and put that in place so if
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 4: you can look at how we got here and then
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 4: it's easier to come up with a plan of how
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 4: to navigate a different direction so hopefully we'll cover quite
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 4: a bit of stuff hopefully it'll be interesting and not
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 4: too academic heavy um but obviously there'll be a lot
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 4: of um links to academia without it being um academic
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 4: writing if that makes.
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 2: Sense yeah no that sounds incredibly helpful and i'm looking
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 2: forward to receiving and helping you publish them i one
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 2: question we always get at uk call when we cover
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 2: these difficult topics is what can we do And so
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 2: if people can actually, as you said, understand where the
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 2: Yoshis came from, what they are now, and then from
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 2: there decide how we can progress to keep our children,
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 2: grandchildren safe, whoever is in our lives that we're looking for,
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 2: then I think it will be incredibly helpful. So thank
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 2: you in advance. I look forward to receiving them. So
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 2: is there anything, I always ask this of my guests,
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 2: is there any last thing that you would like to
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 2: say from either one of you that you haven't had
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 2: a chance to say in this conversation?
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 1: Start with Kathy.
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 3: Yes, I hope that anyone who plans to be in
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 3: power in the next few years starts to seriously think
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 3: about education, because I think a lot of the issues
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 3: we have go back to what we're teaching our children.
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 1: And Jen?
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 4: Yeah, well, I do hope to think about education, but
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 4: not in the way that has been done in the
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 4: last few decades, which is where people tinker, they'll tinker
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 4: around the edges. which is how we've got here, because people,
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 4: an individual idea that tinkered with, let's push that in,
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 4: let's pop that in, let's mix all these into the pot,
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 4: but not stepping back and thinking, how is it all
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 4: impacting as a whole? I'd really, really love some people
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 4: in government to step back and look at the bigger
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 4: picture of, look, this is where we are now. What
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 4: do we need to just scrap? And what's always worked
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 4: that we should retain. There's no point throwing the baby
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 4: out of the bathwater. And if you look at the
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 4: PISA scores and things, England is doing pretty well, all
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 4: things considered, compared to other countries. So you have to
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 4: look at what have the other countries done differently. And
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 4: a lot of it is this progressive decolonisation of the curriculum,
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 4: all this sort of stuff. So That's clearly not working
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 4: for children's attainment, achievement. You want children to grow up
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 4: confident and be successful in whatever they want to do
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 4: in life. Whether they're academic, whether they're not, it's not
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 4: really the point. We should be teaching children that these
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 4: are certain facts that will help you get through life.
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 4: And then what you do with them is your choice.
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 4: So I really hope we get somebody who will take
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 4: a step back from it all and just see it.
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 4: before starting tinkering around the edges again another one.
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 2: Thanks for that that's actually quite inspirational gives us really
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 2: something to to look at work toward so Kathy and
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 2: Jen thank you again for your time I've really enjoyed
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 2: this conversation I've learned a lot myself and I'm sure
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 2: that our audience will as well so thank you again
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 2: and we will all be looking forward to the articles
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 2: so thanks very much thank you thanks Diane bye bye