Editor’s Letter | 15 March 2018

Is it the responsibility of schools to teach children about relationships and sexual consent? Or is that something parents ought to be teaching at home? This is the question Joanna Williams addresses in our opening feature. She takes a look at the changing face of sex education, and talks to some of its more evangelical exponents, as well as to a mother who has chosen to remove her daughters from sex education classes. It’s something of a controversial topic — but an undeniably interesting one.

Gender neutrality is a fashionable subject these days, but Katherine Forster suggests that it’s quite harmful for boys if we pretend they learn in the same way as girls. They don’t, and it’s vital to understand the differences if we want our sons to do as well in life as our daughters.

Elsewhere in the magazine, I look at the role of matrons in boarding schools, and how the involvement of parents in the day-to-day life of the pupils is increasing — while Toby Young argues that schools charging parents for the privilege of having their children’s applications rejected is a scandalous rip-off.