Majority of children want compulsory sex education, survey finds

Polling commissioned by the charity of more than 1,100 11- to 15-year-olds found that 70 per cent want government to make SRE a statutory requirement for schools to deliver.

Meanwhile three quarters (74 per cent) of those questioned said they believed they would be safer if all schools taught lessons on sex and relationships.

Barnardo's wants legislation for statutory SRE provision to be included in the Children and Social Work Bill, which is currently going through parliament.

The YouGov poll found that 96 per cent of children surveyed said it was important for them to understand the dangers of using the internet so they can stay safe.

Similarly, 94 per cent wanted to know the risks of sharing images of themselves with a stranger online.

Current government guidance on SRE, used by schools to inform the content of lessons, makes no reference to issues such as image-sharing or sexting.

Barnardo's chief executive Javed Khan said children needed help understanding "digital dangers and the risks of sharing images of themselves with strangers". He urged the government not to ignore their wishes.

"Online grooming is a very real danger facing all children and nearly half of the girls polled said they were worried about strangers contacting them online," he said.

"Compulsory SRE lessons for all children must be introduced as soon as possible - it will help prevent children being groomed and sexually exploited."

SRE is a national curriculum subject for all local authority maintained schools from age 11 upwards. However, parents are free to withdraw children from parts of the lessons that do not fall within the science curriculum.

Academies and free schools have the right not to teach the subject at all.

In February last year, former Education Secretary Nicky Morgan confirmed personal, social, health and economic education, including SRE, would not be made statutory.

However, pressure to make SRE compulsory in all schools has been growing since November 2016, when chairs of five parliamentary committees wrote to Education Secretary Justine Greening demanding the change.

Barnardo's survey was backed by a second poll of more than 400 parents in Great Britain, of which 87 per cent thought age-appropriate school lessons on healthy relationships would help their child understand sexual behaviour and keep them safer. 

Responding to the findings, chair of the women and equalities committee, Maria Miller said the case for compulsory SRE "has never been stronger".