Ofsted to inspect teaching of protected characteristics

[partystress]

www.gov.uk/government/publications/inspecting-teaching-of-the-protected-characteristics-in-schools/inspecting-teaching-of-the-protected-characteristics-in-schools

"Secondary schools could, for example, teach pupils in more detail about sexuality and gender identity as well as the legal rights afforded to LGBT people."

Gender identity is also in a list of things that pupils should be taught about in relation to the law, according to the DfE curriculum guidance

assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/908013/Relationships_Education__Relationships_and_Sex_Education__RSE__and_Health_Education.pdf

Does anyone know how Ofsted or the DfE is defining gender identity?

I really think this is a good thing.
We really need to examine the quality of diversity training in schools.

I’m looking at you mermaids and stonewall.

Currently their are no guidelines in the curriculum this is why cowboys are filling our teachers with misinformation.

I would actually go as far as to say that we need a diversity, equality and sex education expert in every school.
I don’t mean someone who’s’ prepared to do it and wears a rainbow lanyard.
I mean an educated professional who understands the complexities and can provide teaching for students and in-house training for teachers.

*there

Why are they teaching children that 'gender identity' is a protected characteristic in the first place. Even worse when they are taught that this should be put over and above the actual protected characteristic of sex.

ensure that teaching reflects the law (including the Equality Act 2010) as it applies to relationships, so that young people clearly understand what the law allows and does not allow, and the wider implications of decisions they may make
Is this a blow to the No Outsiders approach, I really hope so. At least it provides leverage to parents approaching schools, the Equality Act protects single sex provision.

There is a link to Stonewall in the curriculum guidance, so I am not holding my breath that this signals the start of more accuracy in the teaching of the law.

I am genuinely interested to know what is meant by gender identity. Would a school teaching that it is a belief held by some people and not others (as would be reasonable for eg teaching about a religious faith) be reprimanded by Ofsted?

Gender reassignment is a thing, a legal process. It exists.

As a teacher, how would I define gender identity in order to discuss it with students? With a Mermaids spectrum? With a genderbread person? How many genders do I teach them about?

How many religions do you teach them about?

@Whatsnewpussyhat

Why are they teaching children that 'gender identity' is a protected characteristic in the first place. Even worse when they are taught that this should be put over and above the actual protected characteristic of sex.

This.

I know 2 Ofsted inspectors both are lovely dedicated hard working if slightly quirky individuals and both are full on TWAW one reposted the #rip that I can't even hear to copy out. One is a Roller Derby fanatic and has a transwoman on her 'womens' team so I'm not hopefully. It's another of those jobs colonised by the worst of the Left and if you're not woker than woke you won't even get an interview.

I wouldn't trust a document that gets the actual protected characteristics wrong. It would be like me saying "woman" is a protected characteristic when it isn't, it's sex. That's not a mistake it's an ulterior motive.

Jellyslice I'm not quite sure what the purpose of your question is, but several major faiths are covered via a syllabus that has been agreed by an advisory group on which several local authorities and faith groups are represented. RE teaching often compares several faiths' view/representation of the same topic - eg creation stories or life events. We wouldn't claim that every faith's view is covered, we would say that these are some of the ways that different religious faiths view X.

If I am asked to teach gender identity, which version am I being expected to represent? The one in which a scientist on a BBC Teach clip tells two primary aged children that we don't know how many genders there are, maybe more than a hundred? Or the one that says gender is on a spectrum of femininity/masculinity? Or the one that decrees toilet provision can be used according to the gender one identifies with (which presumably brings us to two, male and female)?

If either of the last two, I would like to be given a definition of gender identity that is coherent enough to use in class and doesn't rely on regressive and limiting stereotypes based on interest areas or choice of clothes or hairstyle.

I'm very sceptical. Ofsted have been fully Stonewalled and, just like the DfE, have no doubt funded Stonewall with thousands of £££ of taxpayer's money. I'd bet that they've also had extensive (and expensive) gaslighting training from the other lobby groups.
Whatever happens, the rights of girls to safety, privacy and dignity will no doubt come a poor second to the demands of those young males wishing to access female spaces. But I'd love to be proved wrong.

Ofsted are Stonewall Champions. Hopefully not everyone who works there is like that though.

I agree, if as a society we are going to talk about and teach the concept of gender identity we need a definition. It also needs to be prefaced by some people believe just as the teaching of religion is. Neither religion or gender identity are scientifically fact based.

Partystress, exactly. You teach a plurality of religions from a neutral viewpoint. Curricula agreed in consultation with representatives of those faiths. Acceptance that you will never be able to teach every faith. Acceptance that you will never be able to teach any faith to great depth (unless you teach at a school of theology), you can only give an overview. The objective being that all will be tolerant of each other, that there are different ways to live, but none will be expected to practice those faiths.

I cannot see that happening with the teaching of 'gender identity'.

Sorry, Jellyslice I'm still struggling to understand your point.

I can teach the beliefs of say, Hinduism, even though I have no experience of it in my life because there are holy texts and a tradition of stories that have been told and re-told that can be used to say with a high degree of confidence what the Hindu faith says about a particular life event or value.

Where is my reference point for telling children what gender identity means? I am expected to cover it as something that is protected by law, but what is it?

I will happily teach respect for anyone regardless of anything about them. Respect for other humans, the planet, animals etc. But here in a list of protected characteristics is something I cannot explain and which I am aware some would try to explain in a way that would undermine characteristics which are protected by existing law and/or would require resort to unhelpful and offensive stereotypes.

Ofsted wield such enormous power that for something like this to be included in their guidance is effectively a diktat to schools to teach gender identity and to teach it in connection with the law of the land. That is very different from teaching something in a religious studies or ethics class.

My point is that the only way to teach 'gender identity' is the same way you teach religion. Have knowledgeable members of an appropriate range of faiths agree curricula with whoever sets curricula, have those curricula explained to the teachers, and then teach it as a "some people believe " and leave it there. That, however, is not what the transgenderists want. They want 'gender identity' taught as immutable fact, and as something that everyone must practice, in the expectation that everyone will practice it.

Naturally, as an educator you need to know what you are teaching.

This is worrying

Ofsted to stad behind stonewall and try to convince people that the law is not actually the law, and that those following the law are breaking it? I wonder if they will be telling heads that toilets MUST be mixed sex. Literally the total opposite of the law, but apparently ewhats being told en masse to schools and such for some strange reason

Maybe I am too cynical. But my back gets up whenever 'gender identity' is mentioned in the context of schools tbh. Makes me very suspicious.

If gender is only a social construct, how can it be a protected charateristic?

Religion is also a social construct, but also a protected characteristic.

That's true, but not discriminating against someone because of religious belief doesn't involve being forced to accept that their, or any, religion is true.