Any teachers - what do you see happening in schools?

[Wandawomble]

Prompted by seeing a few posts now on what’s happening in schools - including my own daughter’s previous and present school. What are you being told to do and what are you having to do in service to the new ideology?
What support is there for teachers who don’t believe it?
What can be done to help you and what can parents do to help?
Link support threads here please and any other information we can gather.

Bump. I’d be very interested to hear about this.

Does Safeschool’s Alliance or anyone else have any support for teachers themselves I wonder? Obviously there’s guidance about what schools should do, but what about teachers who need support to be able to call on, who can they go to?
My cousin is a teacher in a school where the art teacher has “flags” up in her classroom and she’s notice that some of the girls who like that teacher have started in heavy with the ideology. She also can’t speak to anyone about it. It must be tough seeing it and then being told you can’t say anything about it.

Watching with interest

I have challenged what’s being taught in RSE lessons. At my school, some abysmal lessons on gender have been bought in as part of a package, with very little oversight. They are dumped on teachers to deliver without any discussion or briefing.

There is no school policy on gender. I don’t what our pupils are being told in ad hoc discussions and assemblies or the LGBT club.

I have been polite and cooperative but have met huge resistance (and some real unpleasantness) for even questioning what’s going on. I don’t actually think that the school’s stance is driven by a strong commitment to ideology. I think everyone is scared to even think about it, let alone talk about it, and it’s easier just to download stuff from the internet.

When I escalate my concerns, school leadership close ranks. They are too scared to address the issues honestly, and they don’t want anyone to rock the boat, but I’m not giving up.

I can’t believe no parents have objected. I wish more would, because they might be listened to.

It's tricky to say the least. Teachers seem to get very little information, most of it goes to the pastoral teams etc. I'll give you an example of the type of experience you can expect.

Get an email stating that child no longer wants to be called girls name and must only be referred to as boy's name. Two days later another email to say we must go back to girls name. Repeat every couple of weeks. All staff must know at any given time which name to use in order not to cause offence.

Teachers seem to get very little information, most of it goes to the pastoral teams etc.

This is certainly true. I know that we have a very small number of pupils who identify as trans, and that we must treat them with particular sensitivity. But we’re not allowed to know who they are.

In my experience there is not an ideological push within schools, as much as a combination of ‘be kind’ and a grateful grab of any resource packs that mean someone doesn’t have to create a whole new policy and series of schemes of work...I wonder how Allsorts et al (who provide Full Service Gender Ideology Packages) got such widespread access into schools? Who do TransgenderTrend and Safe Schools Alliance need, to achieve the same ‘Stonewall’ level of access? Liz Truss? Baroness Nicholson?

@HipTightOnions

I have challenged what’s being taught in RSE lessons. At my school, some abysmal lessons on gender have been bought in as part of a package, with very little oversight. They are dumped on teachers to deliver without any discussion or briefing.

There is no school policy on gender. I don’t what our pupils are being told in ad hoc discussions and assemblies or the LGBT club.

I have been polite and cooperative but have met huge resistance (and some real unpleasantness) for even questioning what’s going on. I don’t actually think that the school’s stance is driven by a strong commitment to ideology. I think everyone is scared to even think about it, let alone talk about it, and it’s easier just to download stuff from the internet.

When I escalate my concerns, school leadership close ranks. They are too scared to address the issues honestly, and they don’t want anyone to rock the boat, but I’m not giving up.

I can’t believe no parents have objected. I wish more would, because they might be listened to.

I wonder if this is because parents don’t know what is going on? It’s like a veil of secrecy. All the teachers I know are sensible down to Earth people with a keen sense of safeguarding so it’s very odd how captured things have become.

@Mrgrinch

It's tricky to say the least. Teachers seem to get very little information, most of it goes to the pastoral teams etc. I'll give you an example of the type of experience you can expect.

Get an email stating that child no longer wants to be called girls name and must only be referred to as boy's name. Two days later another email to say we must go back to girls name. Repeat every couple of weeks. All staff must know at any given time which name to use in order not to cause offence.

This is happening with a girl in my daughter’s class - keeps changing the name etc and the parents have no idea it’s happening.

I wonder if this is because parents don’t know what is going on?

I wonder that too. My children volunteered very little about their school day but I would encourage parents to ask about specifically about this topic.

This is happening with a girl in my daughter’s class - keeps changing the name etc and the parents have no idea it’s happening.

I do know that if the child requests that their parents are not informed, then that request is honoured. This often leads to more complications though as the name won't be changed on the register and there is more chance of using the incorrect name.

Similar to what @HipTightOnions said, the information is usually treated on a need to know basis. Teachers who teach the individual are usually not on the list of those who need to know. We are then the ones who get in trouble for not making adjustments or accommodations to suit the needs of the student.

Honestly, it's frustrating. We are not given training or relevant information, but are expected to somehow know everything.

This thread demonstrates why the failure of the EHRC to provide school guidance about trans issues is catastrophic.
We know that they haven't done it because there's no legal way to insist that girls must undress, shower and share dormitories etc with teenage boys self identifying as girls. There's no way they can breach the law of the land by telling schools they can keep secrets from parents (only the courts can removal parental rights).
But their silence leaves all the lobby groups free to make up their fantasy law based on personal ideological wishes and tell schools that these are the right things to do. And it's left to women and small organisations to stand up to them.

A complete failure of the State to protect children.

Just leaving this here - the new guidance from Sex Matters & Transgender Trend. The link in the thread is for anyone who would like to get copies of this into schools - so important given dire illegal guidance currently being pushed at schools:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/4244564-Action-for-parents-in-Scotland-England-and-Wales-Northern-Ireland-coming-soon

Not children related but my school changed our two male/female toilets to gender neutral without consulting the staff. I didn't think anything of it. Until one day I used the old single stall men's out of desperation and had a mooncup explosion when the chain wouldn't flush.
The change means we now have no single sex toilets for adults in the school. Both our lovely Muslim ladies left for unrelated reasons (workplace bullying and racism) after this happened and as far as I know no one has challenged it since. I'm pretty sure it's not legal but don't know if this is the hill I should die on as it was brought in without any discussion and presumably senior leadership thought it was a great idea.
We're primary so in terms of ideology the staff on the ground are sensible, although I will be watching our pshe lead who's an 'old boy' who thinks he's woke so could be susceptible to brainwashing.

Sunny are they self contained 'rooms' or cubicles. The former is not so bad, but the latter is not ideal.

Either way there should have been consultation with staff.

Is there anyway you could raise the issue anonymously (via governors?)

I don't think parents know what's going on. The primary school one of my kids goes to consulted on the rse syllabus, but I've not heard anything from the secondary, and I don't get that much info from my daughter. One of her friends started id'ing as a boy and I heard abut about how the school handled it but I don't know if or how they are covering it generally.

We have had some dodgy pshe but not as bad as a lot of others I've seen (Catholic school). My main concern at the moment is we have a teacher who identifies as non-binary and is telling the kids such things as she was 'born non-binary'. The kids in my form were confused by this and I went for a very biological approach. The teacher always blanks me so I don't know if they are just rude/shy or if they know something about me. I'm very uneasy about what they are telling the students.

Sounds different from school to school as my experience differs from several posters here.

We have a 60-odd page gender policy document, which has been approved by governors, including parent-governors. Staff are not required to read it in its entirety, but training on it is/was compulsory.

Again, unlike other posters, where students ask for us to use a different name/pronoun, we are explicitly told not to refer to them as such until meetings with the family have taken place. A student can't just declare their name changed. Of course, we are sensitive with said student, but it's remarkably easy to avoid pronoun use and do the register by eye (secondary school), until such an issue is referred and dealt with. It is always a senior teacher, usually a deputy head who liaises with the family and will ultimately tell staff of name/pronoun change, if it comes to that. None of our trans students have ever reverted back to their 'previous' name/pronoun. Still have only encountered this with a tiny handful of students in the last 10 years.

We have a third space for changing/ toilet.

To answer the OP's question, I don't know about staff support if they don't agree because I don't know what a teacher could reasonably disagree with about the above approach.

That sounds great Nelle. I know a lot of schools which don't tell parents about name/pronoun changes.

We have two female children who have 'officially' taken on a new name - this has been changed on register with parents knowledge.

There is a new girl every couple of weeks unofficially asking to be called he/they and a new name, but there hasn't been any notification of this.

I don't really know if I am supposed to call them by their new name if it isn't "official".

No training and no guidance at all.

I don't think it's a coincidence that since the LGBT club started giving out pronoun badges the numbers of female children identifying as trans has increased hugely.

Leaf there's one self contained loo (old men's)
And one floor to ceiling two loos with a shared sink(old women's)
My main concern would be washing a mooncup in the shared sink one but non flushing men's was equally as embarrassing.
I'd be concerned about my Muslim colleagues bit the school has bigger problems with racism so they left. I'm not sure if I can contact governors anonymously either.

FFS everyone knows children love badges and stickers. No one has twigged it might be that rather than some personal identity crisis.
I've had children literally steal pages of stickers before. Badges and stickers are super high on children's priorities list.

There is a ton of shit that comes out o the LGBT club at my kids school. The teacher in charge is basically just a woman who says what she thinks about things to the kids and is supposed to have some capacity to guide them talking about dating and such.

@SunnydaleClassProtector99

Leaf there's one self contained loo (old men's) And one floor to ceiling two loos with a shared sink(old women's) My main concern would be washing a mooncup in the shared sink one but non flushing men's was equally as embarrassing. I'd be concerned about my Muslim colleagues bit the school has bigger problems with racism so they left. I'm not sure if I can contact governors anonymously either.

Mmm, seems like this might not be the hill you choose to die on. However, you could write a (hard copy) anonymous letter to the governors, or you could just email but ask that your identity not be shared. If you want to take it further that is.

I think if I was going to say anything it would be about the appalling racism my friend received and resigned over.
However, the change has put the nail in the mooncup coffin for me.