D of E guidance on changing in schools? Help please.

[MacaroonMama]

Hi All,
Looking to see if anyone has a link to D of E guidelines on separate sex for PE changing, please? Our Headteacher is getting stroppy about girls asking to change separately and I want to hit with FACTS! (Not actually hit him...)

I found the bit from non-statutory guidelines about separate toilets/washing facilities from age 8 but nothing on changing.

Thanks in advance xx

See this:

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

Such bigoted, selfish girls eh? How dare they want some privacy.

Good luck with that , my dd school told any pupil that had a problem changing with a trans girl tough luck and to go and educate themselves , that they can get changed in the disabled toilets , as the trans girl is a girl and has the right to change with the other girls . This a child that has been changing with them for over a year now but only on puberty blockers for 6mths and is a self declared lesbian.

Thank you, I knew the women here would know!

So far, there is not a trans issue, just pesky girls (Y5s in bras no less) politely requesting separate space to change. I don’t even have daughters but am GOOD AND MAD on behalf of my friends who do.

And this OP:

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

It's the last para.

Nothing I can find in that link actually about changing spaces - there is the thing about separate toilets for over 8s - but it just seems to say ‘appropriate’ changing facilities for age 11 and up. I think?

Ah thank you I will have a look now xx Cross posted! xx

Ah this?

That's right MacaroonMama.
And it uses the word must, which means that schools MUST provide sex segregated toilet and washing facilities. (sometimes guidance just advises but this tells schools that they must do this).

As most changing rooms have showers then there's the link.

I think there's also some other guidance - hold on.

Here's the NSPCC advice who evidently on the day they produced this could tell the difference between boys and girls.

www.icmec.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/NSPCC-factsheet-best-practice-for-pe-changing-rooms.pdf

Sorry for the irrelevant links OP - I was in a rush earlier.

There is no statutory guidance but the NSPCC's guidelines are helpful. Also, the increasingly earlier onset of puberty means that primary schools are confronting issues that they didn't have to years ago. A Head has to balance not only the need for sex segregation but the health and safety aspects of supervision so it is legitimately a nightmare as two spaces to change needs 2 adults to supervise.

That's not to deny the need for girls who have encountered puberty the rights to privacy and dignity - just to recognise that it's a genuinely difficult issue to manage in some primary schools. One solution is to relax school uniform demands on PE days and let children wear tracksuits and just change foot wear - although that can end up with very smelly classrooms with older children! .

is a self declared lesbian

So normal heterosexual behaviour for their sex, eh?

I feel so sorry for those girls. Being a teenage girl in school can be pretty hellish at times, and so is girlhood/teenagerdom for girls - dealing with a body which is changing visibly, dealing with periods (and pain), dealing with a body which your culture & society now believes it owns and can view & manipulate.

I'd love to see what a school would do if a whole lot of girls said "fine, we'll use the disabled loo" PE lessons would become 80% queuing for that one room

NSPCC guidelines indeed helpful, thank you. We are luck in that all classes (it is a primary school) have at least one teacher and one TA, so manageable to split the class.

They trialled for a half-term kids coming into school in PE kits one day a week which was great for lots of reasons - far fewer lost pieces of uniform/PE kit, less time spent changing and more on actual exercise, easier for Reception kids by far, and solved the need for separate changing spaces for older kids.

The Head is being a bit of a grump and I don’t think he gets it. Lots of us parents are writing emails this evening! My son is a bit oblivious to it all but mums of girls are understandably concerned.

It's great that parents of sons take this up as well. I know from decades of working with children that as they develop, both boys and girls want privacy from the opposite sex. It really is a disgrace that so little attention is being paid to their welfare in this way.