A reminder that all schools should be doing a parent consultation on RSE before the summer

One of my DCs schools has done this, by online survey, I hadn't realised it was mandatory. No mention of anything concerning, it is a fairly traditional school, but there was a box for "anything you do not think should be covered". I completed that in some detail and included a link to Safe Schools Alliance.

Ours is a small independent specialist school so 51 children in total. They have tended to continue as they would pre covid so where there would be meetings and consultations they hold them anyway on Zoom. Because many parents live a good distance away (we are out of County) having virtual meets makes sense I suppose even if we ever escape Covid.

Yes, yesterday via zoom all parents invited, two options to attend morning or evening.

redheadonascooter
That's great. It's incredibly important that parents challenge schools about this. All the teaching unions (including Heads) have been captured and so many young teachers are straight out of university where they have been indoctrinated into TWAW and threatened into silence if they raise any obvious safeguarding or accuracy concerns. So it's up to parents to challenge this and insist on accuracy and safeguarding being prioritised.
There are also some very courageous teachers in the system, quietly prioritising safeguarding and ensuring that the vulnerable children caught up in this have access to 3rd spaces etc.
Parents are the last line of defense now - although hopefully the EHRC statement, the Maya result and the Stonewall lies about the law and women only spaces are making some Heads think twice.

Following on from the Maya Forstater judgement this morning her lawyer has blogged on the wider implications:

"Education authorities will want to review their policies to determine whether a cohort of pupils and students are being miseducated by the presentation of a contentious and doctrinaire view of sex and gender as being a matter of settled fact."

www.linkedin.com/pulse/forstater-judgment-what-next-peter-daly/

Thank you @MrsOvertonsWindow. I have asked exactly that.

DDs school is in the main sensible, and I do trust them. They're a C of E school and generally quite conservative. But it's always worth asking the question isn't it!

redheadonascooter
Maybe ask if they're using materials from any organisations and if so, which?
Also ask for specific examples of whether they will be teaching about gender identity and if so, what will they be teaching children?
In my experience, much of the primary materials are very good and age appropriate. It's only when they get to the gender woowoo that things can fall apart - as this thread shows:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/4265989-DS-teacher-told-him-boys-can-be-girls

I've just had the consultation notice/request for feedback. I've read the policies online but there is no mention of teaching about gender identities etc. It's all very broad brushstrokes sort of info.

What should I be asking for/to see? My child is only in reception atm but I will not have her being taught that you can change your sex. I don't give a monkeys about not being allowed to withdraw her, if that's what they're intending to teach then withdraw her I will.

We teach kindness, respect and inclusivity at home, regardless of how people choose to live their lives. I am not anti trans. I am anti children being taught bad science, anti girls being taught that if you like 'boys things' then you must be a boy, and anti erosion of women's rights.

ASkyPaintedGold - ha - you sound just like me. Always discussing with DD at home. She knows all about puberty blockers, hormones , the surgical operations etc - Keira Bell detransitioning.
Had to start talking about it as they had trans stories on CBBC!
My DD may well say ‘even if a man has his winkie cut off, he’s still a biological man, just without his winkie’.
Well done to your DD for speaking up.

I’m mid fifties myself, had her late, so also much older than many parents.

I found in the govt Relationships and Education statutory guidance Pt 31, it says that schools should not tolerate gender stereotypes.
So what are they going to base gender identity on - if not gender stereotypes, dress, activities etc. ?

@FrancesGumm Glad it helps a bit, anyway.

It's so frustrating isn't it? DD is pretty forthright at times, shall we say 😬 When they had the lesson, she took part a fair bit and even bought up de-transitioners and the negative medical affects of cross sex hormones - I know how that sounds (things that never happened etc!) but we talk so much about it at home and she wanted to bring it up in the lesson. I think the teacher was surprised.
But afterwards, the kids were all talking about their pronouns, never previously mentioned of course, and when she said she didn't need to specify pronouns there were a few raised eyebrows& negative comments - they had already taken on board wholesale the idea of stating pronouns and accepted it as the norm, after one lesson. In year 6. This is why it should NOT be taught this way. For my yr6 child to already feel she is being judged for not conforming to gender identity politics is crap, tbh. She's non judgemental herself, kind and empathetic but that doesn't count apparently, just pronouns.

I must add, throughout her school life I have noticed a preponderance of parents really heavily into gender stereotypes and gendered clothes, much more so than when I was a kid. They are mostly younger than me (old gimmer) and very much into the princess/footballer way of strictly categorising their kids. Out of two forms, DD is one of only two girls to sometimes wear trousers and even then she is asked why she is wearing 'boys trousers' ffs. So I think the environment these kids have grown up in is already strongly gender conservative.

I miss the 80's, when people had personalities instead of gender identities.

From this link (statutory guidance, primary, my bold)

www.gov.uk/government/publications/relationships-education-relationships-and-sex-education-rse-and-health-education/relationships-education-primary

As well as consulting parents more generally about the school’s overall policy, primary schools should consult parents before the final year of primary school about the detailed content of what will be taught. This process should include offering parents support in talking to their children about sex education and how to link this with what is being taught in school. Meeting these objectives will require a graduated, age-appropriate programme of sex education. Teaching needs to take account of the developmental differences of children.

@ASkyPaintedGold - thank you, it is useful.
I will use the first point in my email about not reinforcing gender stereotypes.
I will ask ‘so how does Timmy ‘feel’ like a girl?’
I have no idea how anyone can answer that question.

I need to get my DD to keep putting her hand up and saying ‘but how does he feel like a girl Miss?’ , ‘what does feeling like a girl mean Miss?’ But ‘boys wearing make up doesn’t mean feeling like a girl Miss ‘ , ‘I feel like a mermaid , is that my gender Miss?’ and so on. Although I know my DD will just sit there and not make a fuss.

Or maybe they’ll just spout the sentence they have to say with no back up at all.

Although, having re read them I can see that they still aren't going far enough re: gender identity... sorry, not much help, I know!

@FrancesGumm I used some parts of the updated Department for Education guidance to reinforce my point about gender identity. I'll copy and paste the section below. It's directly from the DfE:

"This sets out that school leaders and teaching staff should:
• when teaching topics involving gender and biological sex, NOT reinforce harmful stereotypes, for instance by suggesting that children might be a different gender based on their personality and
interests or the clothes they prefer to wear. There should be no suggestion that children might be a
different gender based on their personality, interests or the clothes they prefer to wear. Resources used in teaching about this area must be evidence-based.
• NOT work with organisations who produce material which suggests that non-conformity to gender stereotypes should be seen as synonymous with having a different gender identity.
• ensure all content and resources are age-appropriate, aligned with developmental stage and takes into account the background of the pupils.
• exercise extreme caution when working with external agencies and only proceed if they have full confidence in the agency, its approach and resources.

They are pretty clear, aren't they?

I’ve just received the package of lesson plans which are being rolled out to our primary school Yrs 5&6.

I’m in East Sussex and apparently all East Sussex schools have the same. The agency providing all the resources is Educator Solutions.

The website is www.educatorsolutions.org.uk
And is ‘in line’ with updated government guidelines apparently.

I had a chat (and ranted ) to the teacher this morning but had yet to look through the documentation. It’s been given to me as a done deal though.

The section I disagree with is on gender. Gender identity is being taught as fact.

So ‘sex’ is biological parts for a boy or girl.

But then ‘gender’ is defined as a term used to describe whether someone feels like a girl or a boy. And transgender is defined as ‘a person may be born with boy private parts but feel like a girl’ (and similar the other way round)
I want to go back to her on this with ‘what does that mean? What does feeling like a girl mean?’

I told her that I don’t believe in gender and I don’t feel like a woman. I am a woman. That’s it.

I’m not sure what to do with this now - I speak to my DD all the time so she knows all about it.

But yes it certainly looks as though they are teaching as an actual fact.

It’s all about being accepting and kind. My DD is very kind to others but I said to the teacher that if a boy in a dress walks up to my DD , my DD would never be mean , but if he asked her directly ‘I’m a girl, do you agree?’ Then DD is within her rights to say I will call you Brenda if you wish, but you remain a biological boy, you cannot change sex.

I don’t believe in gender at all.

I think the school should be teaching that girls can have short hair , play football and still be a girl and vice versa with boys. That gender pushes sexual stereotypes etc.

It also calls lesbians ‘same gender relationships’ - I’ve already had this discussion with DD and said it’s ‘same sex’ not ‘same gender’.

Is there some govt documentation I could refer her to stating that gender should only be taught as a belief and not fact?

I don’t like sexual orientation always included in the same breath as gender identity. To me LGB is a completely different subject to the T, shouldn’t be taught together.

Are they teaching this to even the youngest year groups?

Good shout OP, I will email to check.

Thanks Hip, this is my concern - it’s all very hush-hush and rushed. I will definitely get back to them.

My son's school asked for input.
I asked if they would be distinguishing gender from Sex. The said they would.
I asked who they were getting in to talk to the kids about gender issues.
They didn't know yet but asked for recommendations.
I told them I would remove my child if they allowed Mermaids in the classroom and I expressed my concerns about Stonewall.

I have just responded this week to our primary school consultation about this. I think it really all depends on which provider the school is going to use for their PSHE materials.

Our consultation has come after year six had a PSHE lesson that appeared to focus solely on Transgender identity and a section about a TW called Roberta Cowell. The teacher also showed them a YouTube video called 'T is for Trans' by Queer kids stuff. This all came totally out of the blue, with no prior notice to parents and caused a certain amount of furore. For a segment supposedly entitled 'celebrating difference' it seemed to only be focused on one particular difference...

Several parents complained, some about the Trans content and some about the lack of notice to parents, considering the content. The video the teacher used is so bad, honestly, I was really surprised they'd used it - hosted by a NB person and a teddy bear aimed at children younger than yr6 and full of 'cisgender' 'Sometimes Doctors don't assign the right gender' and some guff about respecting pronouns at the end. It's terrible, so crap.

This lesson came completely out of the blue and although the school apologised and said it was used in error (the video in particular), the kids got taught a lesson full of inaccuracies before we even had a chance to counter with actual facts. If Gender identity is to be covered in schools, it should be taught in a similar way to RE lessons - that this is a belief system that some people adhere to, not as actual fact. The school have done nothing to rebut the contents of the lesson, so I can only imagine a fair few children will have accepted everything that was said as gospel (excuse the pun) Luckily, we talk a lot at home about all sorts of things, so I was able to ensure that the DC were not erm, 'misinformed'

We've found out that the school use Jigsaw for their materials, so it was useful to refer to Safe Schools Alliance for their comments on the lesson plans that Jigsaw provide (not as bad as some, but still problematic) However, even though you can see a brief overview of segments on their own website, lesson plans etc it really all depends on HOW it is being taught, on the approach of each individual teacher, doesn't it? And if a teacher is fully into the whole ideology, they will be teaching it in a biased way.

It's extremely frustrating that gender identity in particular is considered so mainstream that it is being taught as fact... considering it is a metaphysical belief, after all. Not very secular, is it?

Kitty if I were you I would respond asking for more information

Can I just second this? My school’s RSE policy is a similar length and entirely uncontroversial, but what is actually being taught is a completely different kettle of fish!

Thank you Valancy, that’s really helpful. I will have a good read through and send the relevant staff member an email.

It just felt so ‘quick send them something so we can tick a box’. I had to chase the school twice to actually attach the Policy to their initial email!!