Learning lessons in love the hard way

Sexwise is a confidential freephone helpline for young people looking for advice on sexual health and contraception. It can be contacted on 0800 282930.

Brook Advisory also runs a confidential freephone helpline on 0800 0185023 For more information on HEBS, phone 0131-536 5500 or visit its website at www.hebs.scot.nhs.uk The Section 28 debate has brought into focus the way we teach children about sex. Julia Clarke looks at how schools tackle what can be a thorny subject Whether school pupils know it or not, sex has recently become a battleground. Section 28 is threatening to divide Scotland, and church and state are practically at each other's legislative throats. The Scottish Executive stands accused of disregarding democracy in order to railroad a politically correct Blairite policy through the Scottish parliament.

The veil usually drawn politely and Scottishly over attitudes to sex has been abruptly torn away. This is not just a debate about promoting or tolerating gay sex. It's about our past, the nation we were and how we saw ourselves then, and how we see ourselves in our future. Section 28 is a marker for the future, a sign of the direction in which we will take our new identity: liberal or traditional.

Last week, the Conservatives put down a motion in the Scottish parliament calling for a wide-ranging inquiry into sex education in schools, looking at what we teach children. It's a good question, considering how little it transpires parents actually know about this area of their children's lives. And that may also explain the ease with which it is possible to stampede public support to keep gay sex education out of schools.

Going back to school to see what's being taught these days reminded me of my own sex education in the 1970s, which seemed to consist of little more than frogs spawning and a bit of simple biology. Mostly I recall a nun solemnly explaining to us bewildered girls that a telephone directory should always be put on a boy's lap if you intended to sit there. For some time I thought sex was something to do with BT. (Mind, as contraceptives go, I imagine the Yellow Pages would be pretty effective.) In the classroom there are giggles, a bit of nudging and the odd barely stifled scream of laughter as sixth-year students settle down to discuss sexual health and relationships for an hour, part of 20 such planned lessons they have had over two years. The atmosphere is informal but the discussions are structured, covering everything from contraception - 20 steps to correct condom use - to ways to resist peer pressure to have sex.

All pupils at Firrhill High School in Edinburgh undergo the Share sex education programme, originally piloted in the school itself. Before dealing with the complexities of relationships in fifth and sixth year they saw a video called Living And Growing, which showed a pregnant woman and explained her condition. "We hooted with laughter," says 17-year-old Ross Archibald. "It was pretty funny."

Another one, called Feeling Yes, Feeling No, was also shown at primary school and provokes much the same memories among the group - Bryony Vandepeear can still break into the theme song: '"My body's nobody's body but me.' It was all about it being alright to say no to sex. I still remember it."

Bryony says she already knew quite a lot about sex before her formal sex education classes because she has older sisters, but that not everyone is so lucky. She recounts the "biscuit tin" method of contraception that a few less enlightened friends were once ready to believe in. "The story went round that a girl wouldn't get pregnant if the boy was standing on a biscuit tin and someone kicked the biscuit tin away just as he was ejaculating." She and the others giggle at the thought. With the array of direct advice in front of them in class, including a plastic phallus on which to try a condom, there is no chance of them being similarly confused.

Bruce Davies, also 17, says he thinks it is a good thing that young people should get the chance to know how their bodies work. Some of the boys are a bit less sure of how useful the facts will be in actual relationships, but by and large they're keeping an open mind.

Scottish parents play a spectacularly small part in the sex education of their sons - perhaps because boys may be more reluctant to have such intimate discussions with family, or perhaps because girls are the ones who face the most direct consequences of pregnancy. Four out of five parents talk to their daughters about periods, but only three boys in 100 have the process explained to them at home. No wonder so many seem baffled later on.

Bryony and her group are pretty clear that they prefer learning about sex in the classroom. "It's really hard for us to talk to parents about this. Even when they will talk to you about it, you feel embarrassed because you know they see you as their little girl and don't want to think about you having sex. And then we don't want to discuss it because we don't want to think about our parents having sex."

GAIL Lyall says it can be hard enough talking to teachers, even when they're really nice and you trust them. "You know you have to see them the rest of the time for other subjects, and it can be easier to talk to someone who comes in just to teach this from outside the school."

The trend is for smaller classes, says teacher Myra Anderson, with as many of her colleagues as possible specially trained and then regularly updated. But hard-pressed schools sometimes feel taking teachers away from their class for sex education training is a strain too far, even when they know it is vital for a child's development.

There is little guarantee that pupils are always learning a lot more now. The way the system works, according to Ian Young of the Health Education Board of Scotland, is different from the English system, where a school's Board of Governors has to approve the sex education curriculum. In Scotland, school boards do not have that role, though sex education is monitored by school inspectors to make sure it satisfies curriculum guidelines.

Ian Young is chairing the working group on rewriting the guidelines. At the moment the subject is covered in a wide variety of ways, depending on the school and the comfort level of the head teacher involved. He says it is almost unheard of for parents to opt their child out of sex education, and a parent's right to do this would have to be balanced against the right of the child to have the information.

"Measured against other countries, we are better than the US but not as good as Holland and Scandinavia.They have good school sex education and good access to confidential advice." He says the government is going to consult on sex education and he wants to see more "in service" training for teachers on the subject.

"Sexuality in our society is a moving target, so teachers need to keep up. Today more adults may have come to terms with their own sexuality, but there is a reluctance to recognise that their own children are sexual beings and to communicate directly on this subject."

He cites cultural differences between the British and the more open attitudes of our European counterparts as one factor leading to our high rate of teenage pregnancies.

"We are more inhibited about our bodies and sex. You can see it from the fact we are not at ease with sexual terminology. On top of that there are urban and rural variations in our views, and gender differences - for instance, women are more liberal towards gay issues. Although sex education is a partnership between parents and schools, we know that Scottish parents are very happy to let schools get on with it."

Ian says there are concerns about current variation in sex education across Scotland.

"We need to bring standards up nationally to the best that's already happening in schools. It's very important we get it right for our children's future."

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