Teacher sacked after refusing to use preferred pronouns without first checking with parents

[rogdmum]

“I wanted at least to make sure that my student had parental support and was making an informed decision,’ he said. ‘As a parent myself, I would have been furious if my child had taken this step and I hadn’t been told anything.’

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11246431/Swindon-teacher-sacked-refusing-use-pupils-preferred-pronouns-without-parental-permission.html

I sometimes wonder whether my daughter’s former teachers had any idea her school was supporting her transition (initially) without our knowledge and against clinical advice. I suspect even if they had been aware and had been uncomfortable about doing so, there would have been no way for them to push back against it with management.

Sounds like good teacher to me.

I will welcome government advice, as atm organisations such as Stonewall and Proud Trust are using outdated terminology and presenting opinions as facts and policy as they would like it to be. A PP said that this only affects a couple of students in a year group - not my experience, especially at KS5. There are also concerns re school platforms such as Teams and Google Classroom which can out students to parents or dead-name students. It’s also the case that students need to use deadnames for exam board paperwork, for example for exam entries and NEAs, as the new name hasn’t usually been changed by deed-poll. Parents’ Evenings etc can be excruciating if you forget new names, pronouns, whose parents prefer the old choices, whose don’t know, whose know but don’t approve, who uses a different combination of names and pronouns …

There are also concerns re school platforms such as Teams and Google Classroom which can out students to parents or dead-name students.

School systems are most definitely not equipped to follow the guidance written by the lobby groups (which certainly exposes the lack of any child development, safeguarding or equalities law professionals in drawing up these documents).

As for the GDPR excuse? What a load of bollocks. I know someone who found out school had transed her daughter when she signed into the computer system to top up her daughter’s dinner money account! If the GDPR thing was true, that school would be in a spot of legal bother.

The school may well be in a spot of legal bother anyway because the the government definition of parental responsibility states:

(copy and pasted from here: www.gov.uk/parental-rights-responsibilities )

‘All mothers and most fathers have legal rights and responsibilities as a parent - known as ‘parental responsibility’.

If you have parental responsibility, your most important roles are to:

provide a home for the child
protect and maintain the child

You’re also responsible for:

disciplining the child
choosing and providing for the child’s education
-agreeing to the child’s medical treatment
naming the child and agreeing to any change of name
looking after the child’s property’

end copy/paste

bold emphasis mine.

Social transition is a ‘psychosocial intervention’ and changing a minor’s name is an unlawful interference in parental responsibility.

Any schools who are doing this are wide open to lawsuits, regardless of who wrote the policy, someone at the school signed off on it and someone will be held responsible.

It’s just a matter of time and it won’t be pretty when it happens.

This was covered on GB News's Free Speech Nation this evening. Andrew Doyle interviewed Kevin Lister and he's taking legal action against the college.

They "said something", they just haven't done anything.

Oops, meant to post this quote.

Hasn't Braverman also said to the police to reduce murders by 20%.

I for one am absolutely certain that now she has said that to the police it will definitely happen.

It’s a lot easier to update school policies than it is to reduce violent crime.

We are now getting into a situation where common sense and parental rights are going out of the window in favour of lunatic fringe views which are urged upon us by the left- fringe groups. The problem is people like Starmer won’t stand up to them because there are so many sympathisers in his own party,

I work at a college.

There have been cases where young people under 18 have decided they want to be referred to as the opposite sex. Parents don't agree (as is their right) and we are essentially asked to lie to parents as we have to use birth name etc if phoning up.

We had one who would get dressed again at college so her parents were kept in the dark.

It’s good to see teachers starting to challenge this nonsense. Teachers are there to teach not go along with the delusions of children, it’s ridiculous. A child who is ‘distressed’ by a pronoun clearly has mental health issues, to NOT point this out to parents should be the real concern.

Exactly - nail on head - glad I am not the only one who sees the truth in this statement

Excellent post TheClogLady.
I'd also add that only the courts can remove parental responsibility. It's why the police and social services must head for the courts when they remove children - even in an emergency they only have a limited amount of time before their actions must be sanctioned by the courts. Even then parents still retain responsibility and must be consulted when their children are in care.
Yet schools pay any attention to adults with a vested interest in transing children rather than pay attention to the law - and they get away with it because parents understandably are reluctant to drag their child's school through the courts - which is why it continues.

twitter.com/andrewdoyle_com/status/1574135003734237187?cxt=HHwWhoCz4cPcudgrAAAA

Very interesting @ArabellaScott thank you. So much better to hear from the horse's mouth than to read

So why hasn't it happened?

It's interesting that this female student who decided she was male (at the centre of this fiasco) wanted to be able to enter a maths competition for girls, while claiming to be a boy.

Talk about having cake & eating it.

Once children become Gillick competent their wishes carry very strong weight.

Mines the same, but for how long? Who knows

In case you haven’t noticed, our government has been in quite a bit of disarray lately (and Braverman herself has a had a promotion).

The heel dragging is annoying, but I suspect part of the delay is that the Cass review is taking much longer than was originally anticipated - hence having to issue an ‘interim report’.

Our government has been in quite a bit of disarray for a long time.😆

4 PMs in 6 years. They are a chaotic mess, dropping women's rights every step along the way.

Do school staff actually know how to assess for Gillick competence?

Because in my experience, schools have picked up this phrase from the training provided by lobby groups but have no idea what it is and what it means in a school setting.

When we asked my child’s school for some sort of evidence of when and how and who in the school had determined my child was Gillick competent they had absolutely no answers and consequently had to back down.

Gillick Competence just means that the parents could not block their child’s social transition if it were part of a Gender Dysphoria treatment plan prescribed by a specialist clinician and it would be up to the clinician to assess whether the child has achieved Gillick Competence, not school staff.

learning.nspcc.org.uk/child-protection-system/gillick-competence-fraser-guidelines#article-top

At age 17 the starting point would be that the child is more likely to be Gillick competent than otherwise.

I wonder what this teacher would have done if the pupil was 18?

Another excellent post. There's so much crap spoken by the self invested adults about children and Gillick competence. Of course teacher's aren't competent to assess whether children are able to consent to going down the path of future infertility, body modification, life long drug use and the psychological impact on social transitioning on their future mental health. It's way outside their professional expertise and knowledge. I wouldn't want to be a Head defending myself in court if I'd socially transitioned a child and referred them to one of the dodgy groups over keen on working with children, all without parental consent.

Boundaries keep children safe. Adults who step outside their professional boundaries and dabble with children's psychological development and wellbeing by transitioning them in secret from their parents, frankly deserve to be dragged before the courts to explain themselves.

Excellent post there, MrsOvertonsWindow.

When teachers presume to work beyond their professional capacity, when they decide off their own bat to "trans" children, with no professional capacity to do so. What are the prospects for suing that individual teacher; and the whole senior leadership team; and the Headteacher; and the board of governors?