School census records preferred gender

[CornedBeef451]

I found out today that the DfE guidance for the termly school census states schools should record the gender chosen by the child/parents in some circumstances. (I'll attach the relevant paragraph below)

This means we now have "boys" in a girls school. It seems like a very bad idea.

What if a boy is recorded as a girl in primary and then gets a place at a girls school, or the other way around?

DfE Guidance
5.2.9 Pupil gender [ALL schools]
The gender of the pupil in the format of ‘M’ (Male) or ‘F’ (Female).
In exceptional circumstances, a school may be unsure as to which gender should be recorded for a particular pupil. Where this occurs, gender is recorded according to the wishes of the pupil and / or parent.

We decided not to send DD to a girls' school for reasons exactly like this. Male children in a mixed school = fine. Biologically male children in a girls' school is not fine.

Surely if the ACTUAL census was told by a court of law thst this is not okay, the DfE must have got the memo?!

... according to the wishes of the pupil and / or parent.

So what are the school to do when the parents want their child's 'gender' to be recorded as their sex, but the child wants it recorded a as something else.

More clear-as-mud guidelines.

It is particularly stupid. We're waiting for further information from them but I doubt it will be any clearer.

We decided not to send DD to a girls' school for reasons exactly like this. Male children in a mixed school = fine. Biologically male children in a girls' school is not fine.
I was inclining to the other direction. At a mixed school, there are definitely male students, some proportion of whom will in the current climate identify as other than male, and head teacher has said they can access whichever changing room they want. So high likelihood of DD being gaslighted into changing with males however she feels about it.

Girls school much less likely to have male students identifying as female, and DD sharing with female students identifying as male is no problem.

Does it ask for sex as well as gender?

No it only records gender, possibly due to squeamishness about the word sex.

It's going to bugger up all the other school IT systems too. Either we're going to have to change the sex on everything or somehow work around records no longer matching across systems. I don't know if we can even record a boy at a girls school.