Rushen MHK Dr Michelle Haywood says that parents are keeping their children off school during sex education lessons which are being taught by religious groups.

In the House of Keys on Tuesday, Dr Haywood asked education minister Julie Edge whether any personal, social, health and economic education (PSHE) lessons were currently being taught by such groups.

Ms Edge said that some PSHE classes ’at the request of individual schools may be delivered by outside agencies’.

This includes the ’LoveLife’ programme taught to years 10 and 12 (ages 14-15 and 16-17) by the Scripture Union Ministries Trust (SUMT).

The SUMT is an island-based charity which describes its mission as being to ’bring faith within reach of every child and young person in the Isle of Man’.

Ms Edge described LoveLife as a ’facilitated sex and relationships course’ which is offered to the schools free of charge by the SUMT.

She added that the material had been reviewed and ’delivered to consistently high standard’ since 2012.

SUMT told the Manx Independent that ’most’ island secondary schools had taken up their offer and received the LoveLife curriculum.

’Whilst some lessons include the deliverance of facts around relationships and sex, much of the course is facilitated discussion, debate and engagement with students,’ Ms Edge said.

’There is an agreement in place between the Department of Education, Sport and Culture which states that content has to be agreed prior to delivery by the school - this agreement guards against any religious bias,’ she explained.

Another SUMT programme for Year 8 (ages 12-13) students is ’You Matter’, which Ms Edge said focuses on themes such as ’allowing young people to explore their identity and emotions, look at who and what can influence their lives, and how to stay safe in different situations and different relationships’.

Dr Haywood then asked what steps were being taken to ensure that consent was obtained from parents prior to children receiving education from faith groups, and how it is managed if the beliefs of the faith groups do not reflect those of the child or the family.

Ms Edge replied: ’With regards to how the schools monitor that, the teachers would obviously be aware of what the lesson is about within PSHE, it is part of the curriculum, and on a number occasions parents can make that choice, and I’m sure that parents would liaise with the teacher if they were concerned about any of the content that was being delivered’.

Douglas East MHK Joney Faragher then pressed the minister further on whether parents were given a choice about whether their child is given these sessions ’by groups whose stated aim is evangelism’.

She said that ’an awful lot of curriculum has been taken over by these groups’, adding in that in many parents’ experience (including her own), children who are removed from these schools and assemblies ’aren’t offered a substitute lesson or experience’ and ’often end up sitting alone in a room’, or with a teacher who was engaged with other work.

Ms Edge offered to meet with Ms Faragher and discuss her concerns.