[2025] UKUT 308 (AAC)

Even if there was a statutory duty to provide parents with information to enable a meaningful decision as to whether to exercise the right under section 405 EA 1996 to “wholly or partly” withdraw a child from sex education classes’, the First-tier Tribunal held that compliance with that duty would not require parents to be provided “with copies of curriculum materials, or, for example, all written materials used during any sex education lessons and detailed lesson plans” (paragraph 133). There were other means of providing “sufficient information” examples of which were given in paragraph 134. But if there was an implied duty under section 405 to provide curriculum materials, supplying the materials “without any confidentiality restriction” would not be the exclusive means of doing. For that reason, such an implied duty would not necessarily be inconsistent with “an obligation of confidence as required under section 41 [FOIA]” (paragraph 136).

In any event, the First-tier Tribunal found “that it is not necessary or proper to imply a statutory duty to provide parents with sufficient information so as to enable them to make a meaningful decision as to whether to action their right under s.405 of the EA 1996 to “wholly or partly” withdraw their child from sex education classes”. Given the statutory wording and context, and the legislative purpose, the Tribunal did not accept that Parliament must have intended an implied duty as contended for by the Appellant because “the purpose of the legislation can as well be achieved by schools acting properly to provide sufficient information to parents in accordance with the Statutory Guidance” (paragraph 137). The Statutory Guidance meant that “the right to withdraw is not meaningless without a statutory duty” (paragraph 138).