School Guidance out Tomorrow

[Igneococcus]

I don't have time to read this fully right now, but it sounds messy:

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/789e1fd3-4a82-4b71-a0bf-e165b5f410b1?shareToken=054150e42690555c0ffe751a53776e92

It's as clear as mud. What a mess all this is.

It's better than no guidance, I suppose, and at least it's not a complete stonewall wash.....

I don't understand why some teachers are adamant they won't comply, though. Children have more than one teacher!! Are there individual teachers who are really prepared to allow children to socially transition just in their classes or clubs? How risky is that following the Tavistock ruling?

Maybe we should ask, what penalties would such a teacher face if a former student returned a decade later saying they are detransitioning, have been harmed, and it's the teacher's fault?

Children do have multiple teachers even in primary. It’s not feasible now for the pe teacher to be calling a child one name and every one else another. Plus it really wouldn’t take long for someone less enamoured by gender ideology to whistleblow to the parents and then the school is in trouble!
and yes what if the child later desists and blames the teacher for encouraging them!
what would the teacher do / say?
could parents sue if they were kept in the dark?

It probs let has to be messy. Children have always been called what they wanted and there are always families which can’t be contacted without causing potential problems for children. Keeping children safe is messy and strident opposition to any changes push students further down the path.

I genuinely think that teachers who socially transition children without parental or medical consent should face serious sanction. If the child is at risk, then appropriate safeguarding procedures should be in place.

No teacher would think it safe to administer drugs without parental agreement. Cass shows clearly that social transition is an act which can have serious effects on children’s health. Teachers are not qualified to decide if this is actually in the best interests of the child, and some of them need reminding of this.

This is not complicated, although Stonewall training makes it appear so

How teachers are able to judge what makes for a "serious suicide attempt"? Are they medically qualified now? And how can they arrive at this conclusion without even being in contact with those ex-pupils? And...this is weird...by complaining on Reddit that minors have had their internet access curtailed...are they saying they have been cut off from pupils by parents who can see it's social contagion?

I think we should be told.

Families transfer their children to other schools for all sorts of reasons (inadequate support for SEN, bullying, and toxic friendship groups being the reasons I’ve come across most frequently from other families). So would these teachers also conceal from parents that their child was being bullied in case that led to them changing schools? If not, why is it different in this case? (Other than these teachers’ ideological position on promoting gender identity theory?)

“Teachers on the Reddit forum have said they are willing to be sacked rather than comply with this. One said they worked in a school that used to encourage pupils to “come out” to their parents, but changed their strategy after this led to children being withdrawn from school.

The user wrote: “We have changed our approach to a more cautious one after trans students in the area were immediately withdrawn from school, ‘homeschooled’ for a period of time during which they had all electronics removed and were completely socially isolated, and then re-enrolled in another local school under the threat that if they claimed a trans identity or used their preferred name and pronouns they would be ‘homeschooled’ again until they were 18.

“We lost a couple of students under these circumstances and we gained a couple from other schools. It’s absolutely horrendous for the young people involved and there have been serious suicide attempts.”

This is concerning. These teachers have put their ideological beliefs ahead of parents doing what they believe to be a good thing for their children and unilaterally demonised those actions. While some teachers really do get to know a student, or they certainly can recognise issues at home arising from behaviour and comments from the student, they very often don’t have time to get to know them. At primary school, I remember the shock from my child’s teacher at my child’s academic results at the end of the year, despite us telling him early in the school year that our child was good at one of the subjects but had been telling us that the teacher didn’t help them. This was primary school.

At secondary, we have encountered mostly well intentioned teachers but the reality is that very few of them has picked up the approaching extreme social anxiety my teen has. And I don’t expect them too either, as good as any teacher can be, they cannot be super teachers and know every one of their students well. Or to see past a mask that a child puts on to get through school or meetings with teachers / clinicians.

What I find most concerning though, is this default demonising of parents who probably do know their children and who may make these moves when their child is initiating or at least fully on board with it.

Thanks for the share Iggy.

This is an interesting reminder:

“The published trans guidance for schools will go to a public consultation. Head teachers said they have been “crying out” for the long-awaited guidance, which left them individually dealing with sensitive issues on a case-by-case basis.”

This is where we as parents can get involved with the consultation when it opens. Because, I am sure that extreme trans activists will be already organising their submissions. This is where the government should directly hear from us and hear of the damage that schools social transitioning children without or despite parental involvement. I shall be encouraging the parents I know whose children have been socially transitioned without their knowledge to submit.

It might be the only way that labour will keep this guidance (as confusing and weak as it seems at the moment) and not simply change it to being affirming only.

Helleofabore is spot on. Parents must take part in this consultation. As she points out, the adults and groups over keen on transitioning other people's children will be at the forefront, insisting on their "rights" to alienate children from their families and remove this cohort of mentally vulnerable children from safeguarding.
They've already shown their hand about how they view safeguarding children:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4954762-pushing-back-against-safeguarding

As predicted. KB knows all this.

So washy and watered down to not be offensive that it's confused and unhelpful and puts placating difficult adults over protecting children. And not statutory and everybody knows it.

This is probably a necessary step for the govt to tick the box that says 'tried nice, reasonable, sensitive, yada yada' before having sufficient strong evidence that
the extremists/fundamentalists who went into schools and radicalised staff to their agenda have explicitly taught those staff that they were 'ahead' of the law and it was about doing 'what was right' and the law would 'catch them up'. In essence that it is righteous in this faith to ignore law and everything else and do what the politics commands. Because they alone are enlightened and right, and the heretics must not be listened to.

And that child safeguarding and parental rights and law/government do not matter and should not be attended to: you must further the politics.

It's building up the evidence of severity of political capture and safeguarding disaster having happened by letting extremist political lobbies skip around in schools enforcing their agenda to control children and those with access to them. The general public, press, MPs, all need to know this. In the long term this will be the foundation of keeping politics out of schools and not letting any group with an agenda come and use them to further their political control. It should never have been able to happen.

This is also proving and evidencing that without change to law with hard lines and consequences to compel compliance with the law, there is no way to prevent this political group thwarting efforts to protect children, and they absolutely require this degree of boundaries.

The worrying thing is that there is not enough time left in this government - and enough wishy washy flappy captured people - to get through those law changes, and the next government contains a whole lot of 'sod child safeguarding, look at how lovely I am in my child-harming politics!' idiots.

I suspect it's also helping create evidence in the longer term that some active deprogramming action is going to have to be rolled out through all schools. And that it is this serious.

Teachers who think they know better than parents were a pain throughout my child's time at school. Fortunately that was before schools were captured and we fought for our child, up to involving a child psychologist and governors to make the school back off. I took great delight later in telling the school how well our child had done at things they tried to prevent.

Parents are the ones who will be dealing with the consequences of their child's decisions for life -teachers wash their hands of them once they leave school.

I think that the teaching profession really does need to think carefully about what it means for them to view parents as partners. So often schools see this as them knowing better than parents.

You see this in the response of teachers who claim they won’t follow the guidance. If there are safeguarding concerns, they should be escalating them via their safeguarding lead and letting social work do their job. Or they should accept that parents are absolutely entitled to decide to home educate their children. This weird wanting to control everything and positioning yourself as the arbiter of what is right is not good for anyone.

It simply isn’t up to teachers whether children can or should socially transition. It’s not their call.

Activist practitioners are not a good thing. Schools should be politically neutral and teachers should be able to leave their activism at home.

It's worth pointing out to teachers wailing about bigoted transphobic parents that only the courts can remove parental rights.
The police and social services, even when dealing with the worst abusive parents can only take emergency action to remove children. A child can only be under the protection of the police for a maximum of 72 hours without a court order.

Schools, teachers and other adults working with children have been completely deskilled by some very dangerous people deliberately misrepresenting the law and persuading schools - in the face of all the evidence - that teachers can act in secret from parents. Well they can't. The law doesn't allow it and it's shameful if the Stonewall captured civil service and MPs have been allowed to undermine basic principles enshrined in the law.

Schools, teachers and other adults working with children have been completely deskilled by some very dangerous people deliberately misrepresenting the law and persuading schools - in the face of all the evidence

This. The safeguarding policies and practices are perfectly adequate for all children, there should not be 'special' policies for any group at all.

If you call social services because of concerns for a child or disclosed by a child you have to tell the parents. Unless you are absolutely certain, and are willing to evidence this, that to tell the parents would result in actual danger to the child (not the parents not doing/saying what the child wants) you have to face the parents and tell them what you've done and why, and deal with their feelings about it. Schools will go to enormous lengths to avoid giving medication to children because of the paperwork and accountability involved, and yet in this case where the damage to the child is likely to be easily equal and impactful? There's none.

Teachers are not qualified psychologically or medically to be making these decisions or advising children guiding them. That some teachers feel very politically passionate about wanting to steer children in a particular direction IS a safeguarding disaster, not a good thing.

There has to be a huge paperwork burden involved in all this, an enormous one, naming the adults taking accountability, copies filed with the local authority, and built in warnings and reminders throughout that you may end up in a court of law with parents, and in ten years from now with the child you think you are helping who comes to feel that your well meant interference in their life was an abject failure of your duty of care. Schools have to be at least as afraid to do this to a child and family as they are to give a child a paracetamol tablet.

"If you call social services because of concerns for a child or disclosed by a child you have to tell the parents. Unless you are absolutely certain, and are willing to evidence this, that to tell the parents would result in actual danger to the child (not the parents not doing/saying what the child wants) you have to face the parents and tell them what you've done and why, and deal with their feelings about it".

Well said Frood. You know that the useful idiots pushing this nonsense have never made a safeguarding referral in their lives. Yet somehow because of "trans" they're given an importance that would never be granted to anyone else spouting such ignorance.

Dick move on the part of the government to once again launch key guidance for schools at a time when a lot of them have already broken up for the holidays.

It looks like the guidance is a close as they can get to banning social transitioning in schools without having to change the law that says that gender reassignment is a protected characteristic for children.

It's not clear re toilets when they say that they have to remain separate whether that means simply that a child cannot use toilets designated for the opposite sex, or whether mixed toilets need to revert to single sex.

I'm still shaking my head at the wailing in the press by teachers that when they tell parents they're busy transitioning their child and helping them down a dangerous road, the bastard parents actually take the child out of their power and reach!

I mean, it's like parents have rights or something and get to decide who influences their child and whether or not that influence is a good thing.

"They claim families informed that their child has socially transitioned at school are removing and home-educating them because they believe their trans identity is down to social contagion."

That's their right though, isn't it?

Exactly. It’s like the teachers taking these positions simply don’t understand that they don’t get to decide everything.

Lots of teachers are very young (and therefore cheap). It should come as no surprise given what universities are indoctrinating their students with, that teachers fresh out the oven are spouting the same bullshit. It’s not that they think they get to decide everything, is that they think identity IS truth.
In my experience, young science teachers are the worst. I think it’s because they are statistically the beardiest department. They should know better, but they don’t. On the other hand, teaching assistants, often being forty to fifty year old mums and working extensively with sen children have to a last one, in my experience, been gender critical (though quite circumspect about who they admit that to).

That’s indoctrination for you

Get children whilst you can, normalise it and then they grow up pushing your agenda for you

I’m not sure any country will reverse gender ideology

On schools guidance I haven’t read it, but the law is still in place so I’ll be up to a point

Excellent post frood.

For some reason a switch appears to be deactivated when it comes to trans; we (teachers) don't go flinging diagnoses such as autism and ADHD about as we aren't medically trained.