Another school one: all girls school welcomes a boy & hides it. Mum sues.

Name changed for obvious reasons.

My daughter goes to this school, I believed it to be single sex until recieving a letter today blaming the council for their admissions policy.

There are a large number of primarys in Beverley and Beverley High has 5 form groups per year so not like a small school where everyone knows everyone. It is very desirable so not all the girls who apply get in and so this boy has taken a place from a girl.

There is also a boys school, Beverley Grammar and mixed sex, Longcroft so plenty of other options. 6th form is joint with the boys school so there are boys on site, but mainly separate from the lower classes.

Off to ask DD if she knew...

If at least one other child went to primary school with the student in question, theres a good chance lots of parents know the truth. So its unlikely that its a girl who identified as a boy in primary. The truth would be known locally, and this parents concerns corrected.

Also, it would be strange to have a trans identifying daughter in primary school and switch to putting them in an all girls school for secondary. Unless its something they were only doing in year 1.

The school could easily say there are no male students without invading anyone's privacy in the same way they could confirm everyone is under 19.

Gosh, that Withers piece is interesting. All those questions and no answers.

Whatever are the parents of this boy thinking? Unless the mum genuinely thinks she's the Virgin Mary, then she must have some idea about how babies are made. Surely mum and dad realise, however "kind" everyone is, that puberty will show itself at some point? And, never mind the girls around, that's not going to be at all nice for their little boy? How do they sleep at night, how do they justify this on their son?

I don't understand how parents can do this to their children. The only parent I know in this situation appears to be completely delusional, but even she subtly dropped her son out of Scouts to avoid questions about camping etc. So she knows really. But these parents are next level.

I have been trying to find references to this; I might have halucinated the case law, but I did find this article from 2022. I'm sure there's something else about though.

https://www.withersworldwide.com/en-gb/insight/read/single-sex-schools-and-transgender-applicants-in-the-uk

Newnham College are expressly relying on para 3(a) for their undergraduate admissions. Someone had better sue them.

Not least that theres a boy’s grammar he could have gone to. Or a co-ed school somewhere else. I hope this mum takes these people to the cleaners. They aren’t safe to supervise other people’s children. The dishonesty is breathtaking

As far as "exceptional" goes:

There is case law that makes abundantly clear that in case of the "exceptional" admission of a boy (to a girl's school) - there has to be a well founded articulable reason for that boy being an exception, a reason other than their boy-ness, a reason that applies to that particular boy exceptionally. That he identifies a girl would entirely fail that test.

Because they’ve admitted a male into a girl’s school! If this was nonsense then they’d have said so. It’s GDPR or privacy because it’s true

In that case, it would be helpful for the school to confirm that they use the same definition of 'female' as the UK Supreme Court and that by 'girl' they mean a young biological female, and therefore are actually an all-girls school.

Why have they refuse to do this? I don't see what GDPR has to do with it, it would just be a confirmation of their admissions policy.

And since it is by stealth I’m assuming this boy shares toilets and changing rooms with the girls and will bunk with them on school trips? So the school is basically facilitating strip shows for him. I hope they get prosecuted for breaches to safeguarding.

Yes, I was thinking this. Unless the claimant has other information that this article doesn’t mention, it’s not at all certain that there actually is a boy at the school.

Oh, I'm similarly assuming that the parent had sound reasons for thinking this child was a boy, but the quoted part from her daughter's friend could have meant either -- and the school presumably wouldn't confirm either way.

In the absence of other information that might be so. Although why anyone would bother suing the school about a girl with a trans identity is baffling.

however in the article it is clear
Joanne Donoghue sent her three daughters to Beverley High School, which she had attended as a child, but learnt a biological boy had been admitted ‘secretly’

Theres a boys grammar and a girls grammar. I imagine they are highly competitive and places fought for - years of preparation.

If all the boys have to do is ID as girls to get places there, then thats horrible discrimination. History tells us that men fought hard to keep women out of education at all levels. A colleague of mine said to my face that we shouldn’t bother educating girls as they just go off and get pregnant. He got short shrift! And maybe he has had a rethink as I now employ him so not as useless as he perhaps assumed 🤣

“They were talking about who they were friends with at primary school and my daughter’s friend said: ‘Oh I was friends with’ — and then she said a female pupil’s name — ‘but I was friends with her when she was a boy’.”

It's just possible, in the absence of further information, that this is a girl who briefly called herself a boy at primary school.

It’s irrelevant that there are male teachers in girls schools. Everyone knows they are men and safeguarding works for that cohort.

the problem is that a boy has been given a place at the girls’ grammar by stealth. That directly discriminates against the girls and indirectly against boys.

The family who’s daughter was first place on the waiting list for this grammar will feel rightfully very upset at having been excluded

Looking at the staff list, they already had several penises there which the claimant doesn't seem to have had any problem with.

It’s penises in the toilets & changing rooms that are the issue but as pupils do not share facilities with staff that won’t be a problem. A girls school could have 100% male teachers but would remain a single-sex school.

They wont be able to hide it when his voice breaks and he grows a beard

But the poster concerned was talking about the ownership of penises being the major factor, not the status of the owners.

[email protected]

Newnham use Schedule 12 to justify trans-inclusive undergraduate admission criteria.

OTOH they recently sought women-only candidates for a specific Fellowship, relying on Schedule 9 (occupational requirement exemption) and the fact that their founding instrument predates the Employment Act 1992.

So they haven't completely forgotten their founding purpose of promoting the education of women, unlike every other college.

Newnham is in Cambridge.
There are no women's colleges at Oxford - last one went mixed in mid-2000s.

And are the girls being forced to pretend that there other penis-havers are women? Are the penises in the same toilets and changing rooms as the girls?

Oh dear.

@GenialHarrietGrouty - when we talk of a single sex school we mean the pupils/students, not the teachers.