News

Are you ready to discuss gay marriage with pupils?

Staff wellbeing
As the government introduces legislation on equal marriage, enabling same-sex couples to marry for the first time, are teachers ready? Julian Stanley takes a look at some recent survey findings.

Alarmingly, the answer to the question above is perhaps not. In fact, 67 per cent of staff in schools do not feel adequately prepared to teach same-sex marriage, according to research recently carried out by Teacher Support Network. So why are some teachers not ready to tackle these issues?

Faith is one suggestion. A teacher we polled from a Catholic school told us: “When the gay marriage bill was being passed, the priest ... informed the boys that marriage is strictly between a man and a woman.”

Another added: “The intake of the school (I work in) is more than 90 per cent Muslim and I know parents would be quite unhappy with any LGBT issues being raised.”

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