School Guidance out Tomorrow

"Schools must not allow a child, aged 11 years or older, to change or wash in front of a child of the opposite sex, nor should they be subject to a child of the opposite sex changing or washing in front of them".

I’d question the motivation of any adult who wants to challenge this.

I'm intrigued to read that the guidance was signed off by Kemi Badenoch and not Gillian Keegan, the Minister for Education. Has that been explained somewhere (apologies if it has and I've missed it) because it sounds highly unusual, surely?

Thanks for this detailed distinction. I follow it pretty much, I think

An important safeguard for dc is the ability to segregate by sex even if the law does not change.

Plus imo most people are reasonable, not TRAs, and they will follow this guidance without looking for legal challenge.

It also gives a solid foundation for patents to raise any non guidance issues with a school

Also it fails to mention that there are currently legal challenges from parents against schools / dfe for the harm caused by affirmative models.

It's such a mess and will continue till be so. Throwing decisions back to parents means that schools aren't acting in parentis independently anymore.

For those cases where schools and parents have affirmed, they're likely to have to continue to be, bar single sex spaces.

The leak to Schools Week is bizarre. Im minded to be sceptical of that. I think @LoobiJee breaks it down well. Some lawyers can be into detail plus it is out to consultation.

So rather than wait, they ignored all their safeguarding training and transitioned children without parental permission, allowed boys to use girls changing room, and withheld details of the trans ideology they taught from parents?

Public inquiry needed.

All this has happened outside safeguarding practices. Not just schools, GIDs too, charities, dfe etc. Children were experimented on and are continuing to be so. Nothing was evidence based.

This document is parent centred and throws the duty of care back to them. Highlights that it's a belief. Allows teachers to discuss the beliefs. But that's still not about how we safeguard the children and why.

I can't remember if it mentions the desistance rate? 80%. Probably higher now as many children don't make it to GIDs before desistance. If not it should. Cass is needed urgently.

In the meantime, it's not KCSIE, which is where the changes need to be made.

At least it's draft as clearly there's a lot of working out to be done. I think unfortunately it's going to take years of re evaluating it and changing it.

Not legal experts, not child experts, not medical experts. A lobby group with the right political associations that teachers could feel good about. No wonder they found it easy to fill the vacuum with their grift.

Not experts in safeguard in schools.

The advice about treating children as if they were the opposite sex should have sounded safeguarding alarms within schools.

I said 'some' teachers.

Mermaids have an automated reply form

mermaidsuk.org.uk/schools/

They're not an amorphous blob.

So having got the government guidance they've been asking for for years why are some teachers questioning its legality and reliability? They've been happy to follow Stonewall's 'legal guidance' in the meantime without question. And Mermaids and all the other trans lobby groups they invited into schools.

Why is that? It strikes me it's less about the law and more about politics. Shame on them.

Stonewall, back in the day, were a trusted gay rights organisation.

Some did, on the legal advice of Stonewall, and in the absence of any other expertise.

This why i suspect some schools are captured by gender ideology rather than genuinely seeking neutral advice.

No one could describe Stonewall as neutral.

Of course it's very difficult for schools - but they successfully (to a greater or lesser extent) balance the needs of children of different religions, with different needs (e.g. those with and without SEND or with different sometimes conflicting SEND needs). However in the case of all other issues, it seems the basic principle of respect for others holds true.

For example, students are expected to show respect for other religious beliefs but they are not expected to adhere to the customs of that religion.

In only one area are children expected to change their beliefs and actions for a minority with absolutely no regard for their needs and reason seems to have fled.

The trans issue stands out like a red flag. During Ramadan in DDs school, non-Muslim students are expected to be respectful of those Muslim students fasting. They are not expected to themselves go without lunch. Compelling the use of pronouns (and the teachers using wrong sex pronouns is doing this) is equivalent to expecting all the other children to fast too. Except instead of just for a short period of time it's ALL THE TIME. It's literally insane.

You could equally argue that it's possible for parents to sue schools for unlawful removal of their parental rights and responsibilities (particularly around safeguarding which requires open communication), or that it's possible for parents to sue schools for breaking the existing law around single sex toilets over the age of 8.

KCSIE defines emotional abuse as 'The persistent emotional maltreatment of a child such as to cause severe and persistent adverse effects on the child’s emotional development. It may involve conveying to a child that they are worthless or unloved, inadequate, or valued only insofar as they meets the needs of another person. It may include not giving the child opportunities to express their views, deliberately silencing them or ‘making fun’ of what they say or how they communicate.' Sanctioning children on a regular basis for normal English usage of pronouns, for 'misgendering' and creating an environment where they feel scared to express their belief in binary sex, placing the desires of a tiny minority of students above the needs of all the other students (in some cases affecting the ability to communicate freely for some children - it's bloody hard to use wrong sex pronouns) could easily be argued to fall into this definition.

This is statutory guidance.

None of this has been argued in a court of law yet, but if it gets to that point I doubt it will be around one narrow law (the EA) disregarding all the other laws that govern what happens (or should happen) in schools and regarding children.

I really hope a case comes sooner rather than later.

Even if the pc of gr can potentially apply to children can anyone under the age of 18 actually acquire a grc?

If children do not have a grc then why would the guidance be overstepping the law? If children do have a grc, I could see how the guidance would be a step too far but the first question would be how did the child get a grc?

So in practice all of the argument on the applicability of the guidance is a moot point since even if the pc applies, it cannot be applied?
And anyway there is no hierarchy to the pcs..

Sorry I'm late to this party and trying to catch up.

you've got the government lawyers saying that it isn't actually legally tight.

The Schools Week leak doesn’t include the full text of the legal commentary, so the nature of the concerns raised isn’t entirely clear.

However reading the selection of quotes, the lawyers’ concern seems to be that the guidance’s explanation of the under-pinning legal framework doesn’t go into sufficient detail, doesn’t spell out where the legal test is from EA2010 versus from safeguarding legislation, and doesn’t emphasise the exceptions as much as the lawyers would like. One criticism for example is that the guidance says “there’s no general duty to do X” but doesn’t also say that in some specific (aka non-general) cases, there may be a duty in that particular instance.

It seems to me that it’s possible for “there may be a specific duty in some individual cases” and “there’s no general duty” to both be accurate. Caveat IANAL.

It could be that the policy set out in the guidance is rational and lawful, but that the wording of the explanation for it isn’t quite nit-picky enough for the lawyers. It’s out for consultation, so those who think the legal explanations miss the mark could explain why in their responses.

Some did, on the legal advice of Stonewall, and in the absence of any other expertise.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission only recently admitted that it got the law wrong when it said you couldn't impose a blanket ban on pupils using the toilets of the opposite sex and it should be considered on a case-by-case basis.

The law here is not easy to interpret and incorrect legal advice has been given to schools in the absence of government guidance.

So rather than wait, they ignored all their safeguarding training and transitioned children without parental permission, allowed boys to use girls changing room, and withheld details of the trans ideology they taught from parents?

Why didnt they just say, we cannot be part of this until we get clear guidance?

Now schools are getting guidance, why are teachers saying that they will ignore it?

If schools were unsure of their obligations, why didnt they demand clarification years ago?

Schools have been asking for this guidance for years. It has been promised and delayed and promised and delayed multiple times.

Yes but on the one hand you've got someone claiming that it has been painstakingly assessed by government lawyers as a defence of the guidance and then on the other hand you've got the government lawyers saying that it isn't actually legally tight.

I'm sure Badenoch had her own lawyers look it over as well as the DfE. Given her keen personal interest, I don't think she'd have relied on Keegan's department.

Is Schools Week claiming that DFE - which is led by the Secretary of State for Education, Gillian Keegan - has put out guidance which Gillian Keegan did not agree with and did not sign off, and was therefore signed off by the Secretary of State for Trade and Business and the Prime Minister instead of the Secretary of State for Education?

If Schools Week is publishing articles creating the impression that Gillian Keegan, as Secretary of State for Education, didn’t sign off the DFE schools guidance, it makes you wonder who leaked the legal advice submitted to Gillian Keegan by her departmental lawyers.

Interesting about the leak. Of course, the government takes advice from a range of lawyers. Given everything we know about the extent of trans capture in the DfE specifically - it is quite possible that Stonewall captured lawyers in the DfE gave this advice based on Stonewall law and have subsequently been over ruled by more experienced lawyers who dismiss the Stonewall law.

They've now leaked their preferred advice in a tantrum having been overruled?
Who knows. Only time will tell.

I hope its not a very high percentage. But the DoE did have to remind schools to share the RSHE materials with parents. That doesnt inspire confidence in a lot of schools relationships with parents.

If a parent informs the schools of their childs new name, they would need to respect that. But expecting all other children in the school to comply with preferred pronouns is not reasonable adjustment. I think even using incorrect pronouns in front of a child as a teacher is a safeguarding concern.