Kyle Brewerton: Auckland Primary Principles' Association on the proposed new sex education curriculum

There's uncertainty over whether a newly proposed sex education curriculum has assigned topics across the appropriate age and stage. 

The Government's new curriculum will see children learning about puberty in Year 5 and menstruation in Year 6. 

High school students will also learn about sexual violence and STIs. 

Auckland Primary Principals' Association President Kyle Brewerton told Ryan Bridge it's important for primary students to learn about puberty. 

He believes it would be more beneficial talking about menstrual cycles in the younger years and include the boys too. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Now a new sex education curriculums being put out for
consultation by the government. Children from year four will learn
about consent, gender stereotypes and inclusion, while high school aged
kids will learn about sexual violence and menstrual cycles and STIs.
Carl Bruton's a president at Auckland Primary Principals Association with

(00:20):
me this morning. Carl, Good morning, Good morning, Ryan. Good
to have you on. So anything out of the ordinary
in this.

Speaker 2 (00:27):
To be honest, I haven't had a look at the
actual content of the proposed curriculum detail, but based on
what you're saying, that's largely why we're doing a consultation
because where some of those things are pitched doesn't quite
sit with what we would expect in terms of age
and stage of our little people.

Speaker 1 (00:44):
What's inappropriate at what age do you think, Well.

Speaker 2 (00:48):
If you flip it a little, at the pivotal change
is really the focus, particularly for those primary years, because
we've seen particularly things like periods are happening earlier and earlier.
We were see that that would be more beneficial to
be talking about mestrual cycles in those younger years and
just being quite upfront about that and including the boys
in those conversations as well, So it just eliminates all

(01:10):
the all the giggling and carrying on, and it just
makes it some of normalizes it a lot more at
those early years when you're starting to talk about things
like consent and if you even were going to entertain
things like sexual violence might have you. That's certainly something
for those older years. You wouldn't expect the year five
student to be having those conversations.

Speaker 1 (01:26):
What about the big, the controversial elephant in the room
that you know, kicks of the protests off and all
that stuff, is the gender and the puberty blockers. Is
that a primary school conversation?

Speaker 2 (01:38):
Yeah, you're right, it is the contentious one. We don't know,
and that's that's the trouble. We are just teachers, right,
we're educators. We're not really sure in terms of psychologically,
in the psychology behind things like gender identity, where it
does best fit and is it something that a school
teacher should be trying to teach and grapple with. I mean,

(02:00):
certainly go down the road of being respectful and inclusive.
And people are all prone and titled to their opinions
and views, and we should support anyone who thinks whatever
they think, and we just should be good to eat
one another. We don't sort of get into the detail,
but so it does beg the question is there's something
for schools to grapple with and that's why again this
is this consultation should hopefully bring some clarity.

Speaker 1 (02:21):
Good point, Kyle, Appreciate your time, Kyle, Briton, Auckland Primary
Principles Association President. For more from Early Edition with Ryan Bridge,
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