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.

Grimdamnfanjo - you could even ask if the governors could have the same training, and then you would find out for sure what is being said.
Did you find out who was the training provider?

This is an interesting thread/conversations on twitter, about the Allsorts advice to schools which has been adopted by some LEAs (by the sounds of it). The advice is really concerning to me as a parent. The first tweet is:

"As a school governor I'm genuinely fascinated to know what the safeguarding checks are to ensure that a teenage boy is "in every other respect a girl" before allowing them access to female changing & shower rooms."

twitter.com/ExcelPope/status/1100874745984241665

- 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

I clearly missed this thread the first time round.

How are you getting on?

Tbh, this is something I'd be inclined to get the school council involved in. Pupil voice is a big deal in primary schools. I think if you are able to put this to the school council (mention pupil voice) then the unisex toilets might be stopped pretty quickly.

I spend a lot of time in primary schools and I can tell you that the children are very much aware of boys and girls and neither wants the other in their toilets, nor in their changing areas for PE. I have yet to encounter children above year 3 who either don't change separately or don't attempt to conceal their bodies from the opposite sex.

This is interesting to read. My daughter is year 6 and her class is doing contact rugby with boys and girls mixed. She's really unhappy about it but I know from past experience my views would be ignored. Should I raise this with governors? She's a sporty child normally so it's not that she's trying to get out of PE.

The best thing I've seen/read on women's toilets is the rant by Posie Parker, which I found in a MN thread but will post here again to remind us all that we don't have to be nice about it. This has given me a total high and if you haven't seen it, please do, and get your school governors, heads etc to watch it if possible.

Ratatouille76

I'd ask what curriculum they are using and what training the teachers have received? There are some good programmes for primary schools that are safe and where the skills aspect rather than the contact side is the focus. The programmes have been risk assessed but teachers do need training and support.

It's been posted upthread I think but worth repeating: schools must have single sex toilets for boys and girls over the age of 8. #nodebate. It's the law.

assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/719398/Gender-separation-guidance.pdf

Lamaha
I've just watched the entire PP video you posted. THANK YOU! That is fantastic. She is fabulous and cuts through all the crap. Love you Posie!

Thanks all for your contributions and apologies for the lack of an update.

The school has examined the toilets and found that because they have been built with floor-to-ceiling doors, they believe each cubicle qualifies as "a room" as per the DfE advice (even though they do not contain a sink).

The good news is that as the doors are floor-to-ceiling, there can be no peering over/under cubicles, but doesn't solve the problem of girls not having a unique space for themselves (and actually creates more costs for the school as they will need sanitary disposal in every single cubicle).

TWO page read out!

Front and back.

TWO SIDES!

Always gets me!

@NeurotrashWarrior Wrong thread?

I don't know if anyone's managed to link to it (I tried to look for the thread but couldn't see it) but there's an excellent thread pointing to a blog post about safeguarding in schools. The gist was this: if a girl does get sexually assaulted in school the first question the enquiry is going to ask is "what procedures did you have in place to try to prevent this situation from happening?" So the question the head should be asking himself is "What answer would I be able to give in the enquiry if a girl got assaulted in unisex toilets, when one of my own governors had drawn the problem to my attention before the decision to install unisex toilets was made?"

Making him think about covering his own arse might force him to focus.

(A good friend of mine's daughter - aged 10 - was sexually assaulted in her primary school. It is horrifying how frequently, and how young, this takes place.)

@HoldtheFrontPage no it's the first part of Posie's rant.

2 pages on pronouns or similar iirc

I'm also a school governor, perhaps more shielded from the bulk of this as we're just an infant school but I do keep an eye on policies coming through and make sure that I rock the boat where I can do. My eldest goes to juniors next year and I'm considering going for parent governor there when the time comes - basically as I enjoy doing it! Placemarking on the thread basically.