“Outing” and “Transphobia”: Informing a parent that her child was being “socially transitioned” by a school/college

If the school thought that socially transitioning the child without the consent or knowledge of the parents would put the child at risk if the parents discovered they'd done this, why on earth did they do this in the first place?

Especially as KCSIE states that issues concerning a gender questioning child should be discussed with parents except in the extremely rare cases where this would endanger the child. As Robin has explained, a school does not have the right to remove parental responsibility, so unless there is a court order in place stating that parents shouldn't be told, this should be discussed with the parents.

And since the entire school was told, the parents were obviously going to find out eventually, so if they thought the child would be put in danger by socially transitioning the child, the best course of action would have been to not do the social transition in the first place.

Safeguarding at the school was obviously non-existent if the danger you suggest is actually real.

If the school believes that the child is would be endangered if the parents discovered their child had been socially transitioned at school, the school shouldn't have done it.

If the school believes that socially transitioning the child is a harmless act, they should have told the parents.

Absolutely!

I am reflecting on the contrast between Robin's posts and those of the cryptic poster who seems to self-ID as a GC arbiter of safeguarding and it's quite stark to say the least.

Another thanks for your clear and refreshingly non-cryptic posts @RobinHeartella!

you put the child at risk yourself there as you had no idea how the parents would react

This is operating on a basis where parents are assumed a risk to their children until proven safe. But in law it is the other way around. The law presumes that the parents are the best people to make decisions for the child, unless and until it is decided in court that they are unfit (after a lot of fact finding, as I said upthread).

And this is a precedent that generally works very, very well. We have so much evidence that outcomes are worse for children (on a statistical level) when the state takes over their care.

Because, in the vast majority of cases, parents care more about their children than anyone else does. That's why the buck stops with us. We are the ones who will tirelessly advocate for our children, who know them best.

Parental responsibility exists in law for a very good reason.

You talk about safeguarding, but you put the child at risk yourself there as you had no idea how the parents would react.

Given the college made medical and welfare decisions about the child without her consent, pretty bloody cross with the college I should imagine.

If the parent was abusive and they had concerns, there's no way they'd have put the child at risk by asking 1000s of staff and pupils to attempt to keep a such a secret.

Excellent post, as are the rest

It's a statutory should

Ooh, the chorus just rushed in the back-stage door!

This.
You talk about safeguarding, but you put the child at risk yourself there as you had no idea how the parents would react.

Thirded!
👍👍👍

Seconded 👍👍

Thank you for all your helpful posts Robin.

One more thing, if any organisation wants to override a parental decision in any way (eg a hospital disagrees about a child's care), that ultimately is decided by the courts too.

Lots of examples of this in the news over the years if you're interested.

Ps, not to mention, if a parent is up in court getting their parental responsibility revoked, they have the right to representation and appeal.

A school DSL can't appoint himself investigator, judge, and jury, all in one, and make that call to revoke parental responsibility.

And, no, it doesn't say in KCSIE that a DSL can do that.

We teachers have read it from start to finish every September! That's a lot of times in some of our cases!

(As an aside, I'm here typing all these paragraphs, not because I hope to get through to the pp who is confused about safeguarding, but because there may be new parents and/or new teachers on here, who might not fully understand parental responsibility.)

If you think a child is at risk from his parents, there's a procedure for getting social services and/or the police to investigate, but that STILL has to end with the courts revoking parental responsibility. Only the courts can do that, and only after hearing a huge amount of evidence and viewpoints, including the parents themselves.

A school DSL cannot do that. A school DSL does not have the expertise, resources, or information to make that decision.

It doesn't even matter. Those sorts of chain-of-report guidelines are secondary to the fundamental principle of parental responsibility.

Nowhere does it say in KCSIE that you should do any of those reports instead of telling parents. Only in addition to.

Why are you playing stupid cryptic games? Lots of people interested in this, I just don’t understand why you can’t specify the appropriate paragraphs that you are using to back up your argument.

Is there some sort of ban on specifying this on MN that prevents you from naming the references directly? I am not really understanding all the indirect/cryptic/ wink wink nudge nudge coyness. Why can’t you just say?

There's also been a lot of chat about "should" vs "must" in KCSIE. Pp seems to think if it says "should", those things are optional. No. The only difference is that you won't be legally sanctioned if you fail to do what you "should". You should still do them. A school can't instruct you to do the opposite. A school can't fire you for following the guidance in KCSIE, by saying they instructed you to do the opposite.

(Things in the "must" list include reporting FGM. If you fail to report FGM it's literally an offence, you're considered complicit in a crime.)

So the only difference is it's not a crime not to do what KCSIE says you should. That does NOT mean those things are optional.

Datun · Today 17:35

'Clues'

I know, right? It's redolent of Senator Mccarthy:

"I have a list in my pocket with the names of 130 Communists."

Anyone would think that it's phantom evidence. You'd get more compelling evidence from Nostradamus.

people not following established safeguarding protocol

Sorry but you keep using the phrase "safeguarding protocol" and I don't think you know what it means. It is never "safeguarding protocol" to deliberately hide information from parents with parental responsibility. Nowhere in KCSIE does it say that it is protocol to hide information from parents. Nowhere in KCSIE does it say you are breaking protocol by telling parents things about their child.

Just like we do not hide anything from social services or the police (if they were to ask questions), similarly we do not hide things from parents.

As I said upthread, parents have the right to request a copy of literally everything you have recorded about their child. Every little footnote in your mark book, every internal memo, they have a right to read. As I say I've known parents to exercise this right.

If you're a teacher, usernamesareboring, you'd know this. Absolutely everything you have written or typed about a child can be inspected by the parent.

Out of interest, do you understand what "parental responsibility" means? It means that parent has the ultimate responsibility for decision-making about that child. It is fundamental. It can only be overridden (in exceptional circumstances) by the courts.

Parental responsibility cannot be revoked by a school DSL.

we know what we are doing, ss is involved and have agreed due to parental risk'

And that would have been extremely reasonable to have shared with the op.

Working together document describes the importance of sharing information in a timely fashion.

Yes.

And the person with immediate legal responsibility for the child is the parent.

Has a responsibility to keep the child safe.

Why should she NOT know?

Your ilk- yeah that’s the smug virtue signalers who have to be dragged to reality. It’s pretty obvious to the rest of us.

If an organisation is acting in a way that directly contravenes law/statutory guidance and direct harm may be occurring to an individual, especially a vulnerable minor, how long is it expected for a concerned person to keep raising it via higher and higher powers before they can reasonably whistle-blow?

You are transitioning without telling parents.
...
We know what we are doing
....
But it us against guidance
...
We know what we are doing
....
Go towards, repeat.

If the response had been 'we know what we are doing, ss is involved and have agreed due to parental risk' that might be different, but that does not seem to be the case here.

So how long should the OP have waited?
A week, 3 weeks, a term, a year??

I am very concerned for you that this is so identifiable as you have named the college. I think you should ask MNHQ to redact some of the information. There's also a more private place you can post this.