"They can request another space"

And this at a time when hundreds of girls are saying very loudly that they are not safe from boys in schools, and cataloging everything that boys and men do to make them feel that way. So the response is to make female only facilities mixed? Really bad timing.

I'm with SSAUK. Apologies, I have not read the thread but just been alerted to it. We have lots of information on our website to help parents with regards to RSE teaching, safeguarding policies and toilets:

safeschoolsallianceuk.net/resources-2/factsheets/
safeschoolsallianceuk.net/resources-2/letter-templates/

This definitely warrants an official complaint and whistleblowing to OFSTED. @BlackAlys if you want to email [email protected] we can give you support.

Further to my post above, the actual regulations concerned with separate toilets that you need to quote are:-

Regulation 4 of the School Premises (England) Regulations 2012, which falls within the exemption provided for in Schedule 22 of the Equality Act 2010 that says that it's ok to discriminate on the grounds of sex if you are required to do so by an Act or Regulation.

www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2012/1943/regulation/4/made

Also very important to keep reminding those making policy: a serious case review will establish, in detail:

did you fail to ask the difficult questions?

did you fail to 'think the unthinkable'? ie to think about potential worst outcomes, what happens if people don't respond and behave in the way that you hope?

were you more concerned with sensitivity or not rocking the boat and then having to face up to upsetting some parties involved than in making a thorough, impartial assessment that considered safeguarding the vulnerable parties?

Ofsted involvement and names on reports mentioning such failures are awful, awful things because safeguarding fails are awful things. The job must be done properly.

Why are men so damn keen to give away the few boundaries we have and think they're being so goddamn chivalrous in doing so?

The current orthodoxy is that right thinking, modern and progressive females do not need boundaries and do not want them either.

It's idealistic, naiive and wholly uninformed about the realities of being female. Plus the current seeing of the complications of female people as unfashionable and unwanted.

Have a faith or culture or trauma that presents a boundary to positive, inclusive mixed sex provisions? Get over it! Ditch it! Disability? er.... well, never mind....

Its all very high on what is actually very male centric and naive theory, and shiny advertising, while low on practicality, reality and any actual inclusiveness and tolerance and diversity. And as usual, the people making the decisions won't be the people suffering the realities of naive, ill informed outcomes and producing the serious case reviews that change the policy.

Remember the evidence that people have been sent out to train these policies as the right way forward who have been found by inquiry to be not just without training but proven unable to understand safeguarding, or to have lost posts due to actions incompatible with safeguarding. Passion and good intentions are lovely, but there are kids to be thought of here, and adults have to do the foreseeing and protecting for all of them, however they identify.

Separate toilet facilities for boys and girls aged 8 years or over must be provided except where the toilet facility is provided in a room that can be secured from the inside and that is intended for use by one pupil at a time

Advice on standards for school premises For local authorities, proprietors, school leaders, school staff and governing bodies This is a pdf

So, as I understand it, where there are separate rooms for each toilet (in the same way that disabled toilets often are in eg shopping malls) then that is lawful but, if it's simply a case that an existing single sex space with cubicles in it has been repurposed for mixed sex then that is unlawful.

how do so many new builds get away with the unisex toilets? My DD's comprehensive are unisex with a communal circular washbasin area in the centre. DD's hate it.

Most schools have not being adequately challenged. At some point Ofsted is going to recognise the issues however they too have been Stonewalled.

There are reports of challenges by pupils and/or parents resulting in changes.

Because they will have been stonewalled! They will have had stonewall telling them that mixed toilets are fine and misrepresenting the equality act. It’s only when they’re challenged with the actual law that they start to realise...

Why is it only women and girls who have to move over and "be kind"? Why are men so damn keen to give away the few boundaries we have and think they're being so goddamn chivalrous in doing so?

despite having the frightening statistics of unwanted sexually attention and, even rape and assault in schools

Could you show him the "Everyone's Invited" website?

Are there girls who could organise a girls' strike?

Could you insist on an Equalities Impact Assessment? Is there someone in your LA or Ofsted who could assist?

Bloody men - they have no skin in the game, and Just.Do.Not.Get.It.

Schools are required to provide sex segregated toilets for children over the age of eight, so it really doesn’t matter what he thinks, he has to follow the law.

Still reeling after an inset day talk on Diversity and Inclusion. The group delivering the 2.5 hour long class showed us a video of a trans girl, primary age, happily playing with friends and their parents saying how wonderful it all was.

Parents and teaching staff need to start investigating the credentials of outside organisations running Diversity and Inclusion training in schools. Many are misrepresenting the law and have a poor grasp of Safeguarding responsibilities and child development.

It's gutted me. Girls, move out if you don't like it.

Aside from the particular issue you raise here - what an appalling attitude to teach girls by the HT - they don’t matter, another child matters more than they do.

Schools should be teaching the exact opposite to girls by both words and deeds.

What do parents think? If this was at my DC’s school, I would be livid and would certainly make a complaint

What a surprise that the Headteacher is a man, misogyny, sexism and a blatant lack of care or concern for female pupils, who'd have thought it.

re worst case scenarios. A more realistic one could be perhaps:

What if a 14yo girl got pregnant on a school trip because they shared a room with their 14yo transgirlfriend?

Normal 'safeguarding' would have rules such as boys are not allowed in the girls bedrooms etc. There is a reason for that.

Interesting thing here, regarding the way various people merrily wave people of one sex with gender dysphoria into spaces normally reserved for the other sex.

It turns out men really don't think false rape allegations happen or that they ruin lives, either. If they did, they would be anxious about the very same, and eager to give vulnerable teens with gender dysphoria their own spaces. For their protection.

When male medics have to give a female patient a personal examination, it's usual for them to call in a female member of staff as chaperone. That is for their professional protection, as well as the comfort of the patient.

No-one seems to worry about the position in which they're placing teenagers with gender dysphoria though. Why not?

My confusion/issue - I completely get the NEED for sake sex spaces. But how do you explain to a group of young girls that the pupil that looks and addressed as a boy is sleeping in their room with a bunch of girls? Surely they will assume they are a boy boy trans so would be confused or uncomfortable having a ‘male’ in the room if they want to be in an all female room?

Extreme outcomes are always considered in Health and Safety assessments. It is never valid to exclude them.

I can predict their reactions : "that's an extreme example", "that's hardly likely to happen here", "we're talking about innocent children, not adults". - FFS, it's almost as if they cannot join the dots.

Ask them if they’ve been listening to the news over the last few weeks re the rape culture in our schools.

And would have to be considered as some parents may wish to make choices for their children as to which space is used.

Sorry. Absolute minefield and new implications keep occurring.

Oh and obviously: careful action taken with possible links to the bullying policy that no child ever experiences pressure, encouragement, bullying or discrimination for taking their preferred choice of space, and is never asked to justify this.

I think the revelations coming out about the degree of sexual assault in schools is going to force some very uncomfortable admissions that we're talking about female children being the massive majority group suffering, and that safety, privacy and dignity is going to have to be better assured. And this is not going to work alongside mixed sex facilities.

The HT is already talking about a third space. So essentially a mixed sex space plus a female only space for female children this will not work for, or who do not consent. Ok, that's the way to go - although yes, it says a lot about the problems with this whole attitude that the girls' space caters for male children before it is inclusive of all the female ones. It is fundamentally sexist. However third spaces is the way to go.

So: Where will the third space be? How will it be provided?

What will it be called? Obviously nothing derogatory or doing anything to harm good feeling between children of all sexes and genders is crucial: see the equality act.

How will all female children be notified that this is an option that they have, with no judgement and no need for them to disclose personal information and justify their choice? It will obviously be important for this to be done up front and openly, and positively. And for it to be made very clear, for the protection of the trans children involved, that everyone's needs are met equally and solutions work for everyone, and other children needing other provision is no rejection of them as a person. Different people have different needs and beliefs.

Thinking ahead to safeguard the trans children: what would happen in the event that the massive majority of female children require the female only provision? Particularly if there is a situation in which one trans classmate is one that most girls are able to manage changing alongside, but another is not? An example raised by a MNetter with her daughter at school: one young teenager well known from early childhood and much trusted within the group, and one young teenager who had always been known as a male child and identified as a girl recently, and was known to the girls as having some uncomfortable and sexualised behaviours that had caused the girls some concerns in the past. Obviously this cannot work for some trans children and not others, and these situations have to be foreseen and planned for in order to proactively protect these children from upsetting situations and experiences. It may be easier to protect the smaller number and individual needs of these children by providing them with an additional choice to their sex based space rather than try to gate keep and manage the entire female population's needs and issues.

17-01-2019 NEU
"The results of UK Feminista and NEU’s groundbreaking study are clear: schools, education bodies and Government must take urgent action to tackle sexism in schools. "It's just everywhere" is a study on sexism in schools and how we tackle it."
neu.org.uk/advice/its-just-everywhere-sexism-schools