Teacher made to apologise - “good afternoon girls”

Quite.

If there is genuine concern re: telling parents them school must kick it up to social services to investigate- you can’t just secretly trans a kid at school and not tell the parents because a) the parents WILL find out and it will be in a far less ideal situation than a meeting at school (eg another parent will mention it in Tesco or it’ll be through the schools crappy comms systems and b) gender distressed kids are at high risk of self harm and not telling the parents is akin to expecting them to parent with one hand tied behind their back. If the kid is at risk of self harm the parents need to know*

*when my eldest was at risk of self harm CAMHS told me to get a lock fitted to a kitchen drawer or buy a secure lock box. No razors could be left in the bathroom, no knives in the kitchen and all fire sources had to be locked away too. It’s irresponsible for schools not to share information with parents when a child’s physical well being is involved. See also, binders and grey market hormones.

Must be hard to stand out against it.

I don’t think the public realise properly how powerless individual classroom teachers are in school and how very much more difficult senior leadership can make what is already a difficult job. It’s strange how many senior leaders in schools seem to actively dislike classroom teachers and support staff and actively undermine them, especially with regard to unworkable behaviour policies that put all the onus on the teacher and minimise the role of SLT.
There’s a weird tendency for schools to jump on whatever the latest educational or social fad, fancy or bandwagon comes by and impose it willy-nilly on everyone. When it’s just brain gym or learning styles the waves of nonsense generally retreat leaving only useless paperwork washed up on the shores of the curriculum. But the constant forced the acceptance of all this rubbish slowly erodes critical thinking, and the propensity of schools to fall back on rigid thinking means that genuinely damaging stuff like genderism can easily take hold.

My stepdaughter was transed at school and we’re still deciding as to whether to take it to court or not.

Sadly I think we will only see meaningful change when parents take schools to court.

I feel so sorry for you, why are teachers forced to accept this evil make believe? No wonder teachers are leaving

It should’ve common sense that information is only withheld where there is an actual risk.

In social care parents are always informed of information, eg a child’s disclosure, or referral from another agency- unless it would place the child at risk of harm. The neutral position is to inform parents and this only doesn’t happen if there is specific risk to the child of informing the parents.

It ridiculous to withhold information from parents without there being evidence concern of harm. If there are so many parents out there who are a risk to their children surely the schools should be contacting social care about these children.

2 + 2 = 4. Even if one of those number 2s really, really feels like a 3.

This is disgraceful.- both the OP’s experience and the fallout from “good afternoon girls” as described in the news article. Teachers can’t be treading on eggshells, terrified to even greet their class in case they slip up. They’ve got enough on their minds trying to do the brilliant job that they do each day to educate our kids! Why are the kids suddenly in charge? And why are teachers expected to remember all the new names and pronouns and never, ever get it wrong?

I would be horrified if my child had socially transitioned at school without my knowledge. I would feel betrayed by the teachers. Parents absolutely need to know, unless there’s a child protection issue.

Re the article: A class of girls in a single-sex school is a class of young biologically female humans. Some of these girls may have a gender identity as a trans boy or non binary person. That doesn’t make it ok for a teacher to be hauled over the coals for saying “good afternoon girls”. They are still biological girls.

What an Orwellian nightmare this is becoming. Something’s got to give!

Even if you are enmeshed in the ideology, it is surely a better lesson for the trans teen that people will make mistakes, with no malice intended, than to take this drama seriously.

They can't use the "outing them" argument when the girl is in a girls school either, it's only about validation.

If you have the interests of the pupils at heart, you don't set them up for a life of feeling hated by simple mistakes.

Or take the kid’s word for it (words that have been learned from Jeffrey Marsh on TikTok).

It really is. This is all utter nonsense!

School systems aren’t built with this in mind, I know parents who found out when they went to top up the dinner money account online and found a different name on the account.

You read the register - why should you apologise for that?

This seems key

It sounds like everyone is powerless in the face of this ideology rather than thinking rationally about the impact on the dc

It sounds like even more detail is needed as at every stage people say they don’t know and hide it anyway

The guidance is expected to include an exception for cases where informing parents could expose children to risk of 'significant harm' at home.

So how is this risk assessed? Please don't say you're just expected to guess?

I’d go a step further and say no social transition without a gender dysphoria diagnosis and the supervision of a multi disciplinary team!

My stepdaughter was transed at school and we’re still deciding as to whether to take it to court or not.

I guess then op you have to decide if you’re just going to apologise for an easy life or stand up and take the potential issues that come with that.

Not an easy decision.

I would’ve highly tempted to get some anonymous messages to the children’s parents about their children having alternative names in school.

And it’s all kept very hush hush in the Independent sector with parents hitting a brick wall of they try to raise it within the various independent self managing bodies (none of which have any way for parents to directly complain- any trying to raise awareness is knocked back by both ISC and HM Conferences with “there is no way for parents to complain to us”).

This means numpties like Barnaby Lenon, ISC Chair, to write utter tosh like this saying there is no problem at independent schools because if there were, private parents would be up in arms in the press over it. 🤔

https://www.isc.co.uk/media-enquiries/isc-blogs/no-independent-schools-have-not-gone-woke/

Very admirable. Must be hard to stand out against it.

Socially transitioning a child (ie what your school is doing) is not a neutral act.

Encouraging a child to keep secrets from their parents is the opposite of safeguarding.

OP, please think really carefully about what you are being asked to do here. If you are a parent, think about how you would feel if you found out your child was going by a different name at school and treated as a member of the opposite sex.

There are red flags all over this practice (unfortunately, I know it is increasingly common in schools). There are parents on this board who have found out their children have been socially transitioned without their knowledge.

I appreciate that you aren't SLT, but as a teacher you are in a position of responsibility, and this is a very concerning practice. Someone has to be questioning this.

Do you really, genuinely think that all of the children at your school would be in danger if their parents found out that their children were secretly trans?

How do you determine that?

It’s very unlikely a union would be sensible or helpful.

It is crucial that schools and colleges provide maximum confidentiality in supporting trans students. Trans students may choose to apply for a gender recognition certificate once they reach the age of 18; it would be a criminal offence for someone who has been told that someone is trans in the course of their professional role to disclose this information without the consent of the student. In all other cases, the wishes of the pupil or student in respect of disclosure should be respected. Schools and colleges should ensure they discuss with students, and where necessary with their parents or carers, when it will be necessary to disclose trans children’s legal names, for example when registering for exams and for medical record purposes.

https://neu.org.uk/media/1836/view

NEU is captured. Note “where necessary”.

Argh, pressed enter too soon.

Social transition is a powerful psycho social intervention which schools are in no way shape or form qualified to make decisions about.

Having a school support a social transition without parental knowledge/consent undermines the child’s sense of stability within the family until and has a raft of wider impacts.

I cannot stress this enough.