We now learn that according to a statement from a Wiltshire Council spokesman (Wiltshire Times, April 10) that “Government guidance makes clear that (inter alia) schools aim to equip children as they grow up with the knowledge and skills to manage their lives and relationships in healthy and responsible ways”. This is a laudable aim.

But we also learn that according to this same statement, this aim includes the type of lesson recently taught at St Laurence School, Bradford on Avon, in which Year 7 pupils (ages 11 to 12) were asked to list all swear words they could think of which could be used as slang for sex.....including the most notorious terms and which the teacher then wrote on the board.

No thoughts therefore of seeking to preserve what is left of a child’s innocence, but instead a licence without limits to teach sex and relationship lessons in a way that surely demeans the very concept of such teaching.

Soon from the age of five years our children must receive sex education at school. One therefore apprehends with trepidation both the Government guidelines and the teaching methods that will be applied to such education.

Harry W Barstow

Kidston Way

Rudloe