Sex Education

This is the seventh IMPACT pamphlet.IMPACT is an initiative of the Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain.Its purpose is to bring philosophical perspectives to bear on current UK education policy.The IMPACT series was launched in late 1999.Its papers have been commissioned from leading general philosophers and philosophers of education interested in exploring the assumptions behind current policy.IMPACT pamphlets have covered a wide range of government policies: assessment in schools, performance-related pay for teachers, allocation to secondary education, post-16 training policy, the place of foreign languages in the curriculum, the aims of the new National Curriculum after 2000.Sometimes they have focused on controversial aspects of on-going policyas with those by Andrew Davis on assessment or Harry Brighouse on disparities in secondary education.Sometimes they have tackled a brand-new policy initiativeas with Michael Luntley's critique of performance-related pay; Chris Winch's discussion of the 1999 White Paper Learning to Succeed ; Kevin Williams's radical paper on foreign language teaching in schools, published in the same week as the Nuffeld Report Languagesthe Next Generation ; and Steve Bramall and John White's commentary on the relation between the aims of the post-2000 National Curriculum and the curriculum itself.Each IMPACT paper has been accompanied by a symposium for policy-makers at which the issues raised have been further explored.The new pamphlets have clearly succeeded in their purpose of showing policy-makers how useful philosophy can be in testing the VII IMPACT N0.7 credentials of current initiatives and showing how they can be improved.IMPACT symposia have attracted ministers and shadow ministers, other members of parliament, chief executives of QCA, NASUWT, NATFHE, CASE, senior officials from a number of LEAS, the DfEE, CASE, QCA, the Institute of Directors, TUC, GTC, NUT, NATFHE, SHA, PAT, ATL, AOC, FEDA, the Sutton Trust, Education Network, PINTO, CILT, NALA, ALL, Politeia, Demos and IPPRas well as key educational journalists and academics involved in policymaking.Further IMPACT papers will be published on average once every two or three months.The next ones to appear will discuss, among other topics, government initiatives on the teaching of thinking skills; citizenship education; and personal, social and health education.A full list of topics due to appear in 2000-1 can be found at the end of this pamphlet.Also at the end of every pamphlet, including this one, there is a list of suggestions for further reading.This enables readers to examine opposing, or simply alternative, arguments on the same issues.Each IMPACT paper expresses the ideas of its author or authors only.It does not represent the view of the Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain.There is indeed, no such single view.PESGB contains several hundred members whose ideas and political allegiances are widely disparate.