The Department of Education has spent at least €468,000 to date for 78 SPHE teachers to attend a course at Dublin City University which has become the subject of controversy after teachers revealed the explicit nature of some of what was presented – and it was found that a “guest lecturer and workshop lead” has challenged assumptions of “children’s presumed sexual innocence”.
In response to a written question from Carol Nolan TD, Education Minister Norma Foley revealed that her Department provides a course fee directly to DCU and equates to €6,000 per teacher completing the programme.
However this figure does not include the cost to the Department of covering substitution costs for teachers during the block release element of the programme, the Minister said in her written answer to Deputy Nolan.
Previously, the Minister said that the SPHE/RSE Post Graduate Programme in DCU is a “new post graduate programme to upskill post-primary teachers” and provide “a pathway for progression for post-primary teachers interested in developing their skills in teaching SPHE/RSE”.
“The first cohort of 34 students commenced in February 2023 with a second cohort of 44 students commencing in February 2024,” she said.
“This programme is the first of its kind in Ireland and offers post-primary teachers the opportunity to upskill in this very important subject area. “This is particularly important given the recently updated Junior and Senior Cycle SPHE specification.”
The cost of 78 SPHE teachers attending the DCU course at €6,000 per teacher- without taking substitution costs into account – comes to €468,000 according to the Minister’s figures.
This week a Fianna Fáil TD called on his party colleague, Norma Foley, to ensure that material being taught for SPHE – which he described as a “total disgrace” and “explicit” – was “immediately” withdrawn.
Deputy Seán Fleming said that “many people” had been in touch with him regarding the SPHE curriculum, and that he “shared their outrage and concerns”.
The new SPHE curriculum has been plagued with controversy, with parents claiming that their views had been ignored, and a series of controversies erupting around both the contents of newly-published SPHE schoolbooks, and graphic and sexualized material used in workshops presented in a DCU course for SPHE teachers – with teachers saying the material was clearly intended for classroom use.
A “whistleblower” video of the experience of SPHE teacher, Mary Creedon who attended the DCU course – and was shocked to find it included an animated video of a woman masturbating and an exercise featuring the terms “fisting” and “rimming” – was uploaded by the Natural Woman’s Council and has been watched an estimated 700,000 times on social media.
A Gript investigation into an academic brought by DCU as a “guest speaker and “workshop lead” for its course for SPHE teachers, found that she has written young children “do sexuality” – and believes “heteronormative” assumptions of “children’s presumed sexual innocence” should be challenged through sex education policy.
Prof EJ Renold of Cardiff University has also written that presumptions of innocence in children were used to legitimate “whiteness”, “the family” and “hetronormativity” – and that thinking of childhood as being antithetical to sexuality was a “white, middle-class” concept.
The professor has stated that her research and writing has been designed to “encourage what could be described as a ‘queering’ of childhood” – and recently argued that children aged 0-5 years express sexuality through sexual behaviours. She has argued that parents must not have the right to remove their children from RSE/SPHE lessons – a recommendation accepted by the Welsh government.
Addressing Mary Creedon’s video, Deputy Fleming said “I personally viewed the video myself. I am totally against and appalled by the inclusion of some of the material contained in the teachers’ training course as part of the SPHE curriculum.”
“I have spoken directly with the Minister for Education, Norma Foley on this matter and I’ve asked her to withdraw all such material immediately,” he said.
“It’s a total disgrace and no material of this explicit nature should ever be shown or discussed in schools with young boys and girls. It is totally over the top and should never be considered as part of the SPH curriculum many people have been in touch with me about this matter and I shared their outrage and concerns”.
Other TDs and Senators have also spoken out on the revelations around the SPHE course in recent days – with some referring to the outrage which previously arose regarding the inclusion of ‘Family A’ in an Edco SPHE classbook, in which a GAA-loving, Irish-dancing, Fleadh-going family were portrayed as narrow-minded bigots.
Laois Offaly TD Carol Nolan said that it was now “absolutely certain that what I would term extremist voices are exerting a powerful sphere of influence on our children’s school curriculum.”
In regard to the idea of challenging “children’s presumed sexual innocence”, the Independent TD also said that “very many parents” who contact her would “not accept this poison as the new normal”.
“Quite frankly the professional obsession with destroying the so called ‘myth’ of presumed childhood innocence runs contrary to every child safeguarding ethos of any value. What is driving this relentless determination to sexualise children or to prompt them toward the exploration of what, until 5 minutes ago, were adult only themes? That is the question we need to pursue through a forensic investigation into the pedagogical assumptions that are operating behind a veneer of an attitude which says, ‘this is how things are now, so get over it.’ Well I for one and the very many parents who contact me will not simply accept this poison as the new normal,” she said.
Leader of Aontú, Peadar Tóibín welcomed Seán Fleming’s comments and said that Aontú “has been the only party that has raised its head above the parapet on this issue and had the guts to challenge the material on this curriculum”.
“It is clearly not suitable and totally age inappropriate. One of the most disturbing aspects of this entire situation has been the apparent encouragement of pupils not to disclose to their parents what goes on in this curriculum, that to me is simply unconscionable and goes against everything young people are taught,” he said.
Tipperary TD, Mattie McGrath, said that parents had been “increasingly shocked and horrified” at the revelations around SPHE for schools – and added that Minister Norma Foley needed to answer questions about “how this situation had been allowed to arise.”
“The buck stops with the Minister,” he said, “there’s no escaping that. How did she allow SPHE to be taken over in this way. She needs to apologise and take action.”
In response to queries from Gript, a Department of Education spokesperson said: “The Department does not comment on speakers or books chosen for courses -this is a matter for DCU.”
“The material studied and viewed by teachers on the DCU course was provided to them as adults and it is clearly understood that no inappropriate graphic or explicit material would ever be used in a classroom setting,” the Department said.
However, Gript has now spoken to a multitude of teachers who attended the course who say that the workshops – which included exercises featuring “rimming” and “fisting”, and an activity which told students to write a detailed sex scene – were intended as examples of classroom exercises.
The Department did not answer a series of questions put by Gript in regard to the inclusion of Prof EJ Renold as a “guest speaker and workshop lead” for the SPHE course.
Prof Renold has written that her work seeks “to challenge the often heteronormative, highly gendered and ageist assumptions of young children’s presumed sexual innocence” in the media and in current “sex education policy and guidance.”
The professor has said that there exists a “pervasive ideology of childhood innocence in the United Kingdom and throughout the Western world,” and that this ideology is “coupled” with a “conspiracy of silence surrounding children’s own sexual cultures.”
She has written that presumptions of innocence in children were used to legitimate “whiteness”, “the family” and “hetronormativity” – and that thinking of childhood as being antithetical to sexuality was a “white, middle-class” concept.
The professor has stated that her research and writing has been designed to “encourage what could be described as a ‘queering’ of childhood” – and recently argued that children aged 0-5 years express sexuality through sexual behaviours.
The Welsh professor – who DCU lecturer Dr Leanne Coll was “delighted” to welcome to the course for SPHE teachers as a “guest speaker and workshop lead” – takes issue with “panics” in which she says childhood is “represented as a time of presumed innocence and under attack”.
She has argued that parents must not have the right to remove their children from RSE/SPHE lessons – a recommendation accepted by the Welsh government.
‘CHILDREN, SEXUALITY & SEXUALISATION’
In an introduction to the book, Children, Sexuality and Sexualisation, Renold and her co-editors – R. Danielle Egan and Jessica Ringrose – say its chapters offer “an alternative way of thinking about the child as an inherently sexual being as opposed to sexuality being a pathological outcome.”
They claim “the book’s arguments offer more reasoned approaches, thereby de-escalating the anxiety that can enter into conversations about the sexuality of children,”
They argue that a “problematic effect” of “sensationalist” texts expressing concern around child sexualisation is to deny “girls’ sexual agency, rights, pleasure and desires”. To this effect, they point to a paper written by Renold with one of her co-editors, Jessica Ringrose – which says that “public and private anxieties over the sexualization of girls” are not a new phenomenon – and “have a long and contested history”.
The book includes a quote from one researcher who says: “Children’s sexuality, in so many contexts, turns out to be ‘more complicated than we supposed’. ‘We might’ – if we let ourselves explore these complications – ‘find (new) stories that are not fueled by fear’.”
Renold, who is a professor at Cardiff University, and her co-editors also argued that “child sexualisation discourses” have the “problematic effect” of “overemphasizing the victimization and objectification of girls, thereby reducing any sexual expression as evidence of ‘sexualization’.
The book claims that data from “very young children” (aged from 3 upwards) shows that children are “always already sexualized” because they are gendered (seen as boys and girls), and through emphasis on future ambitions around marriage and special relationships and having babies.
The editors – in asking “what next in the field of children’s sexuality studies” – warn of the need to be prepared for “braving the backlash when we endeavour to introduce notions of sexual pleasure, sexual rights or sexual citizenship”.
