My trade union to oppose Government proposals on sex education?

The General Secretary of my trade union has a little paragraph in The Times today - utterly illogical and rather muddled it is, to say the least. I rather suspect that the leaders of other teacher unions were a bit more savvy than she was, and did not let themselves get drawn in to commenting.

With one of the highest teenage pregnancy rates in Europe, whatever we are doing at the moment we are not doing well. We have got to stop being Janus headed about this and grow up as we expect young people to grow up. We can't infantalise them and then expect them to behave responsibly.

So, I assume that my trade union is now going to advocate a change of strategy ... and not just "more of the same" sponsored by those with vested interests.

It is also interesting to note that The Times is reporting a Catholic Education Service spokeswoman as saying that they are "disappointed" with the removal of the total right of withdrawal- yesterday's spin by Ed Balls might well have been claiming a level of support from the CES that was not justified. There is some relief that the right of withdrawal will remain until age 15 - and, if the CES expressed some welcome of that in the context of removal of the absolute right of withdrawal, one has some understanding of what they were saying.

James Preece, alongside my General Secretary, does a rather better job of arguing for the parental role on this matter.