CALLS for children as young as five to be taught about sex and relationships have been backed by education leaders in Essex.

The report by the Commons education select committee called for personal, social, health and economic education (PSHE) to be given statutory status in all of England’s state primary and secondary schools to ensure enough lesson time is devoted to the subject and teachers are properly trained.

It follows a damning survey in 2013 which found PSHE was below standards in two fifths of schools.

Primary schools currently do not have to provide sex and relationships lessons beyond what is covered in the science curriculum.

The report has also been backed by teachers, but the National Union for Teaching has warned the right training must be given.

Essex general secretary Jerry Glazier said: “Schools should have clearly embedded sex education in their programmes of study, but the issue is about ensuring we have the appropriate training to teach it effectively.

“Really it is left to schools to deal with, but that is the wrong way round. Schools should be encouraged and supported in doing it.

“In the past it has not been done as consistently as they might have wanted it.

“It goes back to schools being given resources and teachers given training.”

The Commons committee has called for the Government to formally endorse and issue supplementary advice on sex and relationship education drawn up by charities and advisory groups last year, as well as checking schools are publishing information about their PSHE curriculum on their websites. Catholic priest, Monsignor George Stokes, who is responsible for education in the Brentwood Diocese, which covers all of Essex, said: “In the round, certainly in this diocese, most of us are saying appropriate sex and relationship teaching should start early.

“Age appropriate is what we are talking about, we don’t want to be pumping young heads of things that aren’t their concern, but we do need to be open to the kind of questions they will ask and the appropriate answers.”

He said the Catholic schools within the diocese already have the Rising Five programme, which offers appropriate education within the context of the church’s beliefs from the very first year and gradually builds on this throughout the school life.

He added: “It is gradual and it is appropriate, so children are able to cope with the pressures there are around them in a world where sex and a number of other related issues are confronting children all the time and e v e r y - t i m e they have to make sense.

“The trouble is we have to alert them to the types of things they would do better to avoid, and above all that they have that one extraordinarily important word – which is no. They do need to know what is going on in the world around them, we can’t put them into some sort of bubble where what is happening doesn’t touch them at all, but one of the major concerns is what is out there as a result of the internet, totally inappropriate stuff, is being made available.”

He welcomed the report and believes age appropriate education will have a positive impact in state schools.