{"id":78942,"date":"2025-09-22T14:20:11","date_gmt":"2025-09-22T14:20:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/78942\/"},"modified":"2025-09-22T14:20:11","modified_gmt":"2025-09-22T14:20:11","slug":"mcentee-rejects-misinformation-about-sexual-orientation-elements-of-new-primary-curriculum-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/78942\/","title":{"rendered":"McEntee rejects \u2018misinformation\u2019 about sexual orientation elements of new primary curriculum \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Concerns over primary schoolchildren being taught age-inappropriate material as part of a new curriculum are unwarranted, Minister for Education Helen McEntee<\/a> has said. <\/p>\n

A revised curriculum, published on Monday<\/a>, will see changes to the teaching of religion and social, personal and health education subjects. <\/p>\n

For the first time, all children in fifth and sixth class will learn about different sexual orientations, including homosexuality and bisexuality. The new syllabus also facilitates learning about puberty at an earlier stage.<\/p>\n

The redeveloped framework replaces the current primary curriculum, which is 26 years old.<\/p>\n

Speaking on RT\u00c9\u2019s Morning Ireland, Ms McEntee said there has been \u201can element of misinformation about what\u2019s actually in the curriculum and what\u2019s not\u201d in relation to teaching on sexual orientation. <\/p>\n

\u201cI want young people when they\u2019re leaving school to understand what basic attraction is and to respect each other,\u201d she said. \u201cAny suggestion that what teachers are going to be teaching in the curriculum is not age appropriate is incorrect.\u201d<\/p>\n

In response to \u201cpushback\u201d on this aspect of the new curriculum, Ms McEntee said children starting school at a later stage had to be taken into account. <\/p>\n

\u201cIn terms of sexual orientation, children are starting school later on … By the time they get to fifth and sixth class they\u2019ve reached puberty, they\u2019re 13 and some of them 14, so what is it to be attracted to another person?\u201d<\/p>\n

[\u00a0New primary school curriculum includes emphasis on language skills and Stem subjectsOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Under the redeveloped curriculum, school patrons will still retain a legal right to design their own religious education programme in accordance with the ethos of their school.<\/p>\n

Addressing changes to how religion is to be taught in primary schools, the Minister focused on \u201cflexibility\u201d and an \u201cintegrated\u201d approach.<\/p>\n

There will be a slight reduction in the patronage programme in all schools, with time also to be dedicated towards \u201cother world beliefs\u201d, Ms McEntee said. <\/p>\n

\u201cGiven what\u2019s happening in the world it\u2019s important not just focusing on our own ethos, on our own curriculum.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re very clear: you have to have time to focus on the patronage of your school but you also need to look at other world beliefs, other views, other religious, other ideologies.\u201d<\/p>\n

Under the new curriculum, all children will begin to learn a foreign language in fifth class and there will be a much greater emphasis on science, technology, engineering and maths (Stem) subjects.<\/p>\n

Education will be divided into five areas: arts; languages; social and environmental education; Stem; and wellbeing, which comprises physical education and social, personal and health education.<\/p>\n

The changes follow research carried out over eight years, capturing the views of educators, parents and about 4,000 children. A wider consultation process, under which submissions were received from a range of organisations and individuals, was also taken into account.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Concerns over primary schoolchildren being taught age-inappropriate material as part of a new curriculum are unwarranted, Minister for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":78943,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[9,10,13264,18,13,14,6,14370,19,17,11,12,15,16,5,22617,7,8],"class_list":{"0":"post-78942","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-department-of-education","11":"tag-eire","12":"tag-featured-news","13":"tag-featurednews","14":"tag-headlines","15":"tag-helen-mcentee","16":"tag-ie","17":"tag-ireland","18":"tag-latest-news","19":"tag-latestnews","20":"tag-main-news","21":"tag-mainnews","22":"tag-news","23":"tag-primary-level","24":"tag-top-stories","25":"tag-topstories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78942","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=78942"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78942\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/78943"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78942"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78942"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78942"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}