Traditionalists stand firm

Changes to proposals on what pupils should learn about morality, to include more emphasis on marriage, failed to satisfy traditionalists at a meeting yesterday.

Five out of 150 members of the values-in-education forum set up by government curriculum advisers opposed the revised proposals, which were supported by Gillian Shephard, the Secretary of State for Education.

The original plans did not mention marriage explicitly, and the revised version said that society should "support ... marriage as the traditional form of the family" while recognising that "the love and commitment ... found in families of other kinds". Yesterday's meeting dropped the phrase "as the traditional form of the family", but traditionalists want to further extend the emphasis on wedlock. Judith Judd