Feminist school governor

[TheFeministGovernor]

I wanted to start a thread to get ideas from my fellow feminists, and share some success stories, and some battles still to win.

I am a governor at a primary school. I have a good relationship with the school, and need to tread carefully in this thread, as I absolutely do not want to out the school, or myself. I believe I'm coming from a good, well-intentioned place in writing this as, during the year I have been doing the role, I have already come across several things that have made me anxious from the point of feminism.

I wanted to use this thread to catalogue successes (small though they may be) where I have challenged and improved school policy, places where I have challenged and made no progress, and places where I have not yet managed to challenge.

I also wanted to get ideas from parents, governors, non-parents, non-governors on what else can be improved (within a governor's remit) pertaining to equality and feminism.

Successes

• Challenged school on all-male curriculum "heroes" for early years. Head promised to revise it to include female role models.

• Picked up on and removed use of "gender" rather than "sex'' in school policies pertaining to the Equality Act. (NB This was slightly pedantic in terms of actual application, but erosion and distortion of language is important.)

Challenged (not yet successful)

• Within the next 3 years, the school will be getting a new building, and they have planned unisex toilets throughout all ages. I raised in very plain language with the headteacher (male) that older girls may not want to use communal sinks if they have blood on their hands. He might be avoiding me at social events from now on.

• Raised the issue that all meeting rooms in the school are named after male authors. This I have been told will not be changed.

Yet to challenge

• As with many schools, there is a discrepancy between boys' achievement and girls, with boys coming off worse. The strategy is currently to teach - and I quote - "boy-friendly topics" like racing cars and superheroes. I barely know where to start with this one, let alone with the fact that their actual published aim is to help make boys "better" progress than the girls. (I do appreciate they mean progress from a lower starting point - not necessarily to make boys achieve more than the girls, but it seems wrong.)

Of course the root of the problem is OFSTED who don't seem to look at equality in sex as a key focus, so understandably it's not the head's focus either (and arguably, therefore, nor should it be a governor's).

But I thought this might be of interest to some.

Agreed grasspigeons.
A simple but useful tactic is to ask about access / usage of facilities, after school clubs, school trips, curriculum choices etc. Ask for breakdowns of which children are using them. That can lead to some really interesting discussions and gets staff and governors to look behind the statistics and question why and what they mean.

I think it might have been 'talk for writing' that has helped a lot in literacy in helping all discrete groups.. I think that's the one where we had staged alien crash landings in the yard, fake crime scenes and so on.

I agree about UTIs. My smaller daughter has started high school and hates the loos. She was holding on all day, not drinking. She started to get symptoms of a UTI which luckily has been nipped in the bud, but isn’t something that I want to progress, obviously. I’ve just got her to the point where she has agreed to go for a wee in school. If the loos become mixed sex, I know she will simply not use them.
My eldest daughter started her periods a year ago at 12 . She would be really embarrassed even rustling san pro if the loos were mixed sex. Just horrible not to allow girls any dignity over periods.
On an adult level, I’ve had to change in the loos after leaking milk all over a blouse. Toddler in tow and tiny cubicles meant I changed in the main area, women all lovely. If that had been mixed sex I would have been really upset. Men have no idea about female needs in loos, you can tell transactivism is male activism with their focus on “we just want to pee “.

I'm pretty sure unisex toilets in schools are illegal. There was a thread not so long ago and a link to an article by an expert - frustratingly I can't remember when and what it was. We need R0wan!

Fair point re changing Vix - there's actually a fair few women change in the main area of the loos at work simply because the cubicles are really small i.e. too small to change in unless you practice yoga. There's no changing rooms, and there's one decent sized disabled loo which is often in use by non disabled guys

metro.co.uk/2018/09/27/girl-sat-in-blood-soaked-clothes-after-teacher-said-she-couldnt-go-to-the-toilet-7984731/
Read this and weep. Someone on twitter said this is institutional mysoginy comparable to institutional racism. This is the real point boy's needs are the default model ,girl's an afterthought even with female teachers.

DP is CoG at our son's primary.

Each class is named after a particular famous/influential British person and they keep this through their entire time at the school. One class is named after a male and the other a female. Every year, no exceptions. eg one year group has "Peake" class and the other is "Sharman".

No toilets are unisex. All children are allowed to leave class to visit the toilet if they need to.

Uniform isn't broken into boys and girls - we simply have a uniform list and it's pick and mix. We have quite a few girls wearing shorts rather than skirts. PE uniform is unisex.

There is an extra curricular group for girls only (single sex) called "Dare to be different" which encourages girls to break gender moulds and explore mechanics. Dare to be Different The year 5 girls won an award last year . Lena Gade has visited the school (one of the following year's classes is "Gade")

DP has passed the Transgender trend info for schools to the Head who was very interested. we don't have any "trans" children so it's not an issue (yet). The term "Sex" rather than "Gender" is used in all school policies.

The school sports teams are mixed sex 50:50 split.

There are still things we don't like - e.g. the head is the only male teacher. We had a male TA for a year and the kids loved him but he's gone back to finish his teacher training now. We hope he will come back in a couple of years as an NQT but at the moment our sex split for staff is not very representative despite encouraging men to apply for teaching roles.

Here is the Department for Education advice:

assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/410294/Advice_on_standards_for_school_premises.pdf

"...separate toilet facilities for boys and girls aged 8 years or over are provided except where the toilet facility is provided in a room that can be secured from the inside and that is intended for use by one pupil at a time".

Nobody that is shocking that the school would not let a child use the toilets- if they have problems with toilet passes they need to manage that better. Not leave girls being humiliated and uncomfortable by not allowing them out of the classroom.
I appreciate that Academies can do their own thing to an extent, but that’s a ridiculous and sexist policy that will make girls ill and want to stay off school when they are expecting their period.

Another governor here. Our primary school policies all say sex, not gender, now.

There are so many excellent responses on here, that I don't want to pick people out individually. Special thanks to anyone who has gone to the trouble of finding relevant links. I think @hackmum that guidance will be invaluable. I will draft an email later this week and send that to the head, and copy in the governor who is the safeguarding lead.

For reasons I don't want to go into, to stay anonymous, the toilet situation is slightly complicated as a) it's not currently a problem but b) the building cannot be changed.

The way it will work is open plan toilets straight off the corridor (e.g. no closed off toilet room), with individual cubicles and communal sinks. I don't really have much of a problem with open-plan design as I think it stops bullying and bad behaviour (though take the point made by a PP that a child who may be washing clothing in the sink would prefer more privacy). But I do have a concern about mixed-sex toilet facilities for older primary children. It's good to hear this concern is shared.

It is also good to hear a measure of temperance from other, more experienced governors around "boy friendly" topics. I still feel that firstly dinosaurs, aliens etc. shouldn't be considered "boy specific", but also that we shouldn't be pandering to notions of male testosterone, fighting, competitiveness, and instead encourage the boys to be more considered and nurturing. There was a fantastic article about this a few weeks ago. www.theguardian.com/education/2018/aug/28/how-teachers-rooting-out-sexism-school

Please keep your thoughts coming. I am aware since quitting full-time work my world has gotten smaller, and this sort of grass-roots activism, tiny though its impact may be, is important to me. I want children (male and female) to know I did what I could to contribute towards equality.

The question I'm asking may seem obvious but my main school seems rather gifted in some ways (and we're in a deprived area!), but do you have a full-time pastoral lead/school counsellor type person? Ours is bloody amazing. This year we worked together to purchase the Empathy Lab book pack which is full of wonderful books dealing with feelings, loss, refugees, all sorts of things. We use them in assembly and they're available to borrow in the library for the kids, they can be taken out by staff to use in PSHE and by the pastoral lead with individual children or small groups. I'd really recommend it. And talk to your pastoral lead about teaching assertiveness, too. It's a balance.

Oh, and if you want reading for pleasure inspiration, look up Reading Rocks on Twitter and go to one of their events. Really inspiring.

Hi, I made this meme based on something another poster said.

I think it’s really profound. “Single-sex toilets are already gender neutral”.

Awesome job LetsHope I really like the ‘be who you already are/express how you want’ message in there.

It was Quoll who made the excellent point on the Home Office gender neutral toilets thread, that single sex toilets are already gender neutral. I totally agree with you it is a really profound statement and makes a great slogan..

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3337295-DM-Women-avoiding-new-gender-neutral-toilets-in-the-home-office-because-men-cant-close-the-door

I’m sure the meme and sticker fans and the lovely CesiraAndEnrico on the Vandals/Stickerwoman threads would love to see your work (and if you haven’t already visited those threads, they have some brilliant memes, sticker templates and slogans on there! ):

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3342172-Thread-2-Anti-trans-vandals-are-plastering-vile-women-don-t-have-penises-stickers-around-THE-WORLD?pg=10&order=

haven't Nordic countries been using unisex toilets for years now?

Secondary governor reads no replies with interest...

Secondary governor reading replies with interest...

Bloody autocorrect!

waves hello guv'nor

@YogaDrone love the sound of your son's school.

DS class were all bought into reading by a combination of The Borrowers and an amazing teacher. She had them convinced the borrowers had been in the classroom overnight. Also used "fractured fairy tales" to appeal to the boys as well as girls without using any stereotypes. They re-wrote fairy tales and gave them a twist. DS did Goldilocks in space.

I agree Yoga your school sounds great !

Well having read this thread it spurred me on to check my DDs school Equality Policy.

Disappointingly they have listed Sex (gender) and Transgender as two the protect characteristics so an email has gone off to my governors main contact at school to ask who wrote it. The school is part of a MAT so this shall be interesting when they ask what needs to be changed.

Thanks I think so too, but then I'm biased!

I had a victory with the uniform supplier today too. Although our uniform is just one list of uniform the supplier's website breaks it into "Boys" and "Girls". I raised it with them ages ago and asked if it could be changed and they said they'd talk to their web site providers. They supply lots of the schools uniforms so I knew this wouldn't be quick or easy. Anyway, the Manager called me today to say that the web design team have now agreed to implement an "All" category for schools who do not want to differentiate their uniforms into boys and girls. No ETA for it yet, but little steps

Thank you for all your thoughts. I'm glad this thread has spurred others on to check their school's policies.

It's also reassured me that there's a lot the school is doing right. I do love the Talk For Writing (but the protagonists in the stories the school has chosen have been exclusively male as far as I can see).

The school also has a "boys'" uniform and a "girls'" uniform, with no trouser option for summer for the girls. Having said that, I saw a lot of girls last year wearing gingham playsuits, with no repercussions (though they are a faff for girls going to the toilet). I would like to see more girls in shorts and a shirt because I actually doubt it would be challenged on a day-to-day perspective. However, I would like to see it formally allowed as part of the uniform policy.

Does anyone know if the advice from the DfE re: separate toilet facilities is simply advice/best practice or is legally enforceable?

I just checked and our school has gender and gender equality listed as the protected characteristics under which the school has legal duties.
No sex and no maternity - (isn’t maternity part of it too?)

Would someone please be very kind and point me to a simple summary of what I need to ask them to do, to get the policy in line with the law? They talk about how they are working with Stonewall’s Education for All campaign.