According to James, he has learned the majority of what he knows about sex from TV. His school only provided basic biological knowledge in primary school and a few brief talks at the end of year 11. James is currently at the Brook sexual health clinic in Brixton for a test. He explains that he is there because someone he slept with had an STI called Chlamydia. However, he doesn’t even know the symptoms of the disease or how to cure it. On the subject of sex education in school, Odia explains that there was a place where students could go to get advice and condoms and even practice putting the prophylactics on a plastic penis. However, it wasn’t mandatory, and many students, particularly boys, didn’t attend. Odia also says that there were no sex education lessons at secondary school, and the pressure to have sex, especially without protection, was intense. She highlights the issue of sexual cyberbullying and how young girls need education and guidance to protect themselves from these dangers. Sexual health charity Brook believes these experiences support the Family Planning Association’s call to make sex and relationships education (SRE) a mandatory part of the curriculum. The government has not ruled out parents withholding their children from SRE lessons, but Brook’s chief executive, Simon Blake, believes it’s a missed opportunity that leaves young people vulnerable to unwanted pregnancies and STIs. An Ofsted report found that SRE teaching was only satisfactory in a third of UK schools, making it necessary to provide a core entitlement for all students and to train teachers well enough to deliver it. It’s not just about the technicalities of sex; young people want to learn about relationships and how to deal with real-life dilemmas.
According to women’s rights activists, schools deciding their own sex and relationships education (SRE) content and allowing parents to remove their children from lessons could prevent girls at risk of female genital mutilation and forced marriage from accessing crucial information. Fionnuala Ni Mhurchu of the Iranian and Kurdish Women’s Rights Organisation claims that schools in areas with high Kurdish populations may shy away from teaching about forced marriage and other cultural issues in SRE classes. At Crompton House School in Oldham, PSHE (personal, social, and health education) was changed from an hour-a-week lesson to a standalone subject seven years ago, with three teachers responsible for most of it. In Year 9, pupils receive a ten week SRE course, which includes lessons on contraception delivered by Brook staff. The school also lends students “virtual babies” to care for and learn about parenthood over the weekend. Under current UK legislation, sex and relationships education is not compulsory.
Your assignment is to rephrase the entire passage using enhanced vocabulary and create original content with a fluid, natural tone. The output should be in the English language. The original text to reword is as follows:
