Call For More Sexuality School Education

A top police officer in Nottinghamshire has told Capital more young people will develop 'warped' views about gay relationships from the internet if schools don't improve the way they teach about it.

There's been an increase of more than 15% of homophobic attacks reported to Nottinghamshire Police in the last 3 years, with only a fifth of those resulting in a charge.

Deputy Chief Constable Sue Fish says making lifeskills lessons compulsory will help change attitudes, and help reduce the number of hate crimes reported to police:

Meanwhile, an openly gay teacher from Derbyshire's told Capital more gay role models need to come out to help children feel more comfortable talking about sexuality.

Bradley Wall from Shirebrook told his pupils during a school assembly. He told us about the whole experience of coming out at his school and what needs to be done to avoid homophobic attacks:

The Department for Education told Capital work was ongoing to tackle homophobic bullying in schools to change attitudes.

A Government spokesperson: “No-one should have to live in fear or suffer in silence. Hate crimes, targeted at people because of who they are, have no place in our society.

“This Government has provided more than £7million to help teachers tackle bullying head-on and a further £2m grant programme to build schools’ knowledge and capacity to prevent and tackle homophobic, biphobic and transphobic bullying this year. We have also strengthened teachers’ powers to deal with bullying and launched the Stop Online Abuse website, which provides help to anyone, particularly LGB&T people, about how to spot and deal with online abuse.”