Any teachers - what do you see happening in schools?

There is a transboy in one of my classes. I just taught her class a lesson on inherited and environmental variation which (because of student questions) made quite clear that humans can't change sex and gender is a set of stereotypes.

As long as information is factual and tolerence is emphasised we shouldn't be afraid to tackle difficult conversations.

Good article today in the Mail about schools not informing parents about new identities - there's a thread about it.

Not children related but my school changed our two male/female toilets to gender neutral without consulting the staff.

There is an article today in the telegraph. Following the consultation on toilets, the government are going to amend building regs so that public building have to provide separate female only loos. They can only provide unisex if they are self contained rooms with their own sink. I don't know if it will apply to workplaces but it's worth looking into. It backs up your argument that the current situation with staff loos isn't good practice if you do want to have the argument.

Placemarking

Lots of sensible discussions taking place at my school (secondary).

Lots of Year 7 girls declaring pronouns. I've requested a 'script' so that we can politely field this sort of thing whilst maintaining safeguarding protocols.

In our many many interactions with DD’s school about our objections over their refusal to support us in following watchful waiting, we have had two teachers who seemed to understand the issue and had good conversations with us. In both cases, the next time we spoke, they had retreated to the school position of following the child’s lead and unquestioned affirmation which left us disappointed and under the impression that the school position is driven from the very top.

I do wonder how many teachers there are simply unable to speak out.

PLACEMARK! Placemats indeed!

Just commenting to placemats

I can’t believe no parents have objected. I wish more would, because they might be listened to.

My DD finished school (prematurely obviously) last year and I only found out about all this after. She told me that there was a transgirl in her year but she's not sure about toilets/changing etc. My DD always wanted to avoid PE, said it's because she hated it but now I'm wondering

I find it appalling that schools allow children to take on new identities - this is supporting this agenda, children and teenagers go though many phases - that is normal. By allowing name changes/different gender the schools are in many ways making it harder for the child or teenager to move back from their stance. We seem to have lost common sense in this area - teenager and children want to rebel and this is a phase

I have to say I went straight to our MP and spoke to them. Very nice conservative who agreed with me.

Also interesting to see how many teachers suddenly have Harry Potter facemasks and lanyards when I know for a fact they have not even read jk Rowling..... Got my Ravenclaw lanyard on order.

I think if I was going to say anything it would be about the appalling racism my friend received and resigned over.
However, the change has put the nail in the mooncup coffin for me.

There is a ton of shit that comes out o the LGBT club at my kids school. The teacher in charge is basically just a woman who says what she thinks about things to the kids and is supposed to have some capacity to guide them talking about dating and such.

FFS everyone knows children love badges and stickers. No one has twigged it might be that rather than some personal identity crisis.
I've had children literally steal pages of stickers before. Badges and stickers are super high on children's priorities list.

Leaf there's one self contained loo (old men's)
And one floor to ceiling two loos with a shared sink(old women's)
My main concern would be washing a mooncup in the shared sink one but non flushing men's was equally as embarrassing.
I'd be concerned about my Muslim colleagues bit the school has bigger problems with racism so they left. I'm not sure if I can contact governors anonymously either.

We have two female children who have 'officially' taken on a new name - this has been changed on register with parents knowledge.

There is a new girl every couple of weeks unofficially asking to be called he/they and a new name, but there hasn't been any notification of this.

I don't really know if I am supposed to call them by their new name if it isn't "official".

No training and no guidance at all.

I don't think it's a coincidence that since the LGBT club started giving out pronoun badges the numbers of female children identifying as trans has increased hugely.

That sounds great Nelle. I know a lot of schools which don't tell parents about name/pronoun changes.

Sounds different from school to school as my experience differs from several posters here.

We have a 60-odd page gender policy document, which has been approved by governors, including parent-governors. Staff are not required to read it in its entirety, but training on it is/was compulsory.

Again, unlike other posters, where students ask for us to use a different name/pronoun, we are explicitly told not to refer to them as such until meetings with the family have taken place. A student can't just declare their name changed. Of course, we are sensitive with said student, but it's remarkably easy to avoid pronoun use and do the register by eye (secondary school), until such an issue is referred and dealt with. It is always a senior teacher, usually a deputy head who liaises with the family and will ultimately tell staff of name/pronoun change, if it comes to that. None of our trans students have ever reverted back to their 'previous' name/pronoun. Still have only encountered this with a tiny handful of students in the last 10 years.

We have a third space for changing/ toilet.

To answer the OP's question, I don't know about staff support if they don't agree because I don't know what a teacher could reasonably disagree with about the above approach.

We have had some dodgy pshe but not as bad as a lot of others I've seen (Catholic school). My main concern at the moment is we have a teacher who identifies as non-binary and is telling the kids such things as she was 'born non-binary'. The kids in my form were confused by this and I went for a very biological approach. The teacher always blanks me so I don't know if they are just rude/shy or if they know something about me. I'm very uneasy about what they are telling the students.

I don't think parents know what's going on. The primary school one of my kids goes to consulted on the rse syllabus, but I've not heard anything from the secondary, and I don't get that much info from my daughter. One of her friends started id'ing as a boy and I heard abut about how the school handled it but I don't know if or how they are covering it generally.

Sunny are they self contained 'rooms' or cubicles. The former is not so bad, but the latter is not ideal.

Either way there should have been consultation with staff.

Is there anyway you could raise the issue anonymously (via governors?)