6th/7th grade is the norm for the subject here.. and I don't think it's too early at all - personally I think it would have been ok for the school to have talked about it in 5th grade, because well over half the girls in my dd's 6th grade class have been through puberty already. So from the school's standpoint, I think it's very understandable why 6th grade is an appropriate grade level to address the subject.

I also have always felt that I wanted to be the person who talked to my kids about sex first, rather than having them learn about it from someone else. My parents didn't bother talking to me about it until I'd learned pretty much everything at a slumber party in 5th grade. That was fine for me, but I didn't want my kids to think that I didn't care enough to talk to them about it, and I wanted to have a good open relationship where we *did* talk about it so that when they were older teens, if they were struggling with questions about what to do/peer pressure/whatever surrounding sex, we would have already had the groundwork established that let them know they could talk to me about it comfortably.

And then when my youngest dd was, maybe 3?... her older sister, who was maybe 5?... asked what a vagina was at the dinner table... and younger dd answered! She knew because another child at preschool had told her. So I had a bit of a jump-start with talking to my kids lol!

I only bring that up because, my honest advice on this one is - once it's talked about in school, it's going to be talked about on the playground. If you hold your ds out of class while the class is talking about it, he's going to potentially want to know what he missed, or other kids are going to potentially tell him what he missed. I think at 10 years old, you're wise to talk to your ds yourself, where you can also talk about values, and then let him participate in the talks at school.

The other thing I'd consider - whether or not the class was having a Sex Ed class given at school tomorrow, at 11-12 years old (which I'm guessing most of his classmates are?), there are going to be kids talking about sex. Even if there weren't the Sex Ed class tomorrow, it's most likely a good time to talk to your ds about it anyway.

Best wishes,

polarbear