Still Asleep at the Wheel: A Further Examination of Gender and Safeguarding in Schools - Policy Exchange

No i dont think parents should always be told if risk is elevated. I know you think it should be that way. I am glad it is not.

Women are allowed to have different opinions.

As a rule safeguarding policies have to be consistent and always used to avoid loopholes which are exploit or cracks through which children fall.

Safeguarding policy is not a matter of opinion.

If a child is talking about transitioning parents SHOULD be told. If this puts a child at potential risk, SS should be involved.

No exceptions.

To do differently is a safeguarding fail.

I know what you think. I disagree. I think it should be decided on a case by case basis. We are alloeed to have a difference of opinion. Women are allowed those.

Do you understand how safeguarding works? It is first and foremost designed to protect the child from harm, but it is also designed to protect adults at the school from the accusation of harm. Adults should never be doing things with or to children and keeping it a secret from the people who have parental responsibility for the child.

As I have said before, if the school believes that the act of informing parents (that their child is being affirmed at school in the wrong sex) would put the child in danger of harm, they should NOT keep it a secret! The fact that the school is worried that the child could come to harm if a fact of the child’s life became known to their parents means that the school must inform social services. The school cannot simply affirm and stay quiet. That would be a safeguarding failure.

And just to make it completely clear: It would be a safeguarding failure because if the parents found out via some other route than the school, and they ended up harming the child, and it was later found out that the school not only knew about it, but went along with it and informed no one, including not passing on their concerns to social services, then the school would be in very, very deep shit.

Most people don't agree with every single view and policy of the political party they ultimately vote for. This goes even more so for minority and oppressed groups. We do not get that luxury. We have to go with who will keep us alive or at least be bothered by our death. Even if they do some shit we don't really like or even directly oppose.

No, I think they should have some sort of inschool counselling. We had this sort of thing and it was confidential from our parents unless we disclosed abuse. I spoke to one a lot about my sexuality, including sex with people above the age of consent while I was below the age of consent. It was handled confidentially and in a way I was able to recognise where I was being exploited.

I would have never had that relationship with the counsellor had I not been guaranteed that privacy.

Yes I have. It might put the child at risk of harm. Some people just don't think that is a priority. I think it's more of a priority. It's a difference of opinion. We are allowed those.

I’m glad to hear that gender ideology is dying out in your school. It was always very lacklustre in our school - big farming area thankfully.

A few years ago there were lots of schools and teachers reporting significant numbers of ‘trans’ identifying kids, especially in clusters like Brighton etc It would be fascinating to know what the numbers are now.

I'd probably record it on CPOMs these days if I overheard that sort of thing (luckily in my school it seems to have largely died out). People higher up the food chain would make the decision.

I'm very slow on the uptake, but why should the school care?

No collusion with social transition, no change of name or pronouns, no other-sex single sex activities and sports - why is it any of the school's business how a child identifies?

I'm a bit confused by your post and we may be talking at cross-purposes. I'm a secondary teacher.

Teachers can certainly overhear children being called by a different name or referred to by different pronouns without anyone officially telling them that a child is trans. That is probably even likely to happen before anything official happens through the school.

If a child is being called a different name and different pronouns by their friendship group, then that's effectively a social transition. But there is zero requirement if a teacher observes this, for the parents to be informed. I think parents should be informed given the associated risks, just as I would hope they would be informed if a child was spotted with signs of self-harm.

Oh and to just underline -my post is in direct reference to @GlovedhandsCecilia highlighting that honour violence is prevalent in particular cultures.

'Honour' violence is committed by Islamists. Islamists are block-voting Green. Greens think self-ID is a fabulous plan.

Square that circle.

Oh also, noone can 'transition' because noone can change sex. It's all utter bollocks, stop using the language of it.

Yes - that's in the new KCSIE draft and is an example of how transactivism has been able to influence policy.
Making a decision about keeping confidences is a challenge in schools. Many schools have a pastoral policy that simply tells adults they mustn't make a decision about confidentiality alone - they must share information concerns with pastoral / safeguarding staff. A principle of safeguarding is not to work alone - hence the multi agency approach and that is replicated in schools with effective safeguarding systems.

Expecting ECTs, TAs, lunchtime supervisors, first aiders etc to make a decision about keeping a child's confidence is a big ask. An individual teacher / adult is unlikely to know other relevant issues about a child's life to be able to assess whether there's a safeguarding risk. So good schools simply advise teachers to share concerning issues with experienced staff

And 'honour' violence is committed by which people?

And those people are standing for which party in droves?

And that party is also pushing 'trans rights' and self ID?

One would wonder why the very same people who you're concerned about being violent to their kids for being trans are the very same people who are standing for a party who is pushing gender identity ideology.

Something doesn't sit right, one way or another.

So you said but your arguments, such as they are, are weak and unconvincing, there are good reasons for telling the parents, not to mention a legal requirement, you haven't given even one good reason to not follow the Child Protection procedures.

Yes, I think you're right. My mistake. Puberty blockers can't be sourced unless parents help too - I think even Susie Green's "Ann" service requires parental involvement.

But there are forums telling children how to source cross-sex hormones instead of puberty blockers. Including homemade ones.

I'd forgotten (until just now) that one of Helen Webberley's recent nuggets of info was that children who can't access puberty blockers can access other means to alter their bodies. IIRC, she clarified that she meant cross-sex hormones.

But the child is not able to source puberty blockers. Children are not given puberty blockers just because they want them.

Safeguarding guidance determines that teachers should never promise confidentiality to children.

KCSIE specifically says that if a child tells a teacher that they feel like the opposite sex they can keep that confidential.

It's definitely social transition if the child's friendship group is doing it.

Edited to add, if it's only a nickname but no change in pronouns, that's not a social transition. Children (and adults) use nicknames all the time.

"Whatever the future outcome might be, should a teacher be put in the position of being the only adult who knows, and by not saying anything is effectively affirming".

Safeguarding guidance determines that teachers should never promise confidentiality to children. Way back the trans lobby group GIRES offered free and very dangerous "training" to adults working with children where they told individual adults to keep secret a child's disclosure that they were really the opposite sex. They were completely ignorant of safeguarding, legislation & how confidentiality operates in safeguarding.

That's when I realised how dangerous to children this ideology was and how transactivists were self identifying as "experts" while being precisely the opposite. It took years before they amended their "training" to include a safeguarding perspective and then they hid it from public view so heaven knows what's in it now.

That's how safeguarding children has been systematically undermined. Nobody at the DfE exercised any due diligence about these organisations nd now the whole toxic and dangerous to children ideology is having to be prised out of schools and away from children. And as Policy Exchange demonstrates, it's still well embedded.

The teachers on this thread have patiently explained how safeguarding children works in schools and tried to reflect how complexities are managed. Yet posters still decide that their views must matter more than all the safeguarding guidance - which as @WarriorN pointed out, is informed by the countless tragedies & subsequent Case Reviews where institutions have failed to safeguard children.

I'm personally delighted that the gender questioning guidance has been located in statutory safeguarding guidance as - even though it's not perfect - it should finally stop activists being able to promote transgenderism at the expense of children's safety.

Yes it is.

People don't consider a child's friendship group as all calling that child by a different name and pronouns as 'socially transitioning' then? It only counts if the teachers are doing it?

So a child makes a request to socially transition, the school says no.... and then that's the end of it?

Any child who believes they need to socially transition is at risk of harm e.g. that child may believe they need to source puberty blockers to stop their body changing. Why would the school just say no and ignore all of the many risks related to social transition?