School survey

[backinthebox]

My DC’s school have sent home an email saying all of the Yr 11 children will spend half an hour on Monday filling in a survey on perceived micro aggressions against LGBTQ+ people in school. The accompanying notes state that any child who feels awkward or wants advice will be given the opportunity to be put in touch with The Proud Trust afterwards. The survey asks many questions about transitioning and the school’s assistance in the process. How (apart from withholding permission for my child to take part,) do I make my thoughts known? There is a large cohort of girls apparently experiencing rapid onset gender dysphoria in the year group, at least one of them has already started taking hormones. I think it is really inappropriate for the school to engage with this research. The questions are very loaded.

Link to survey

It's a shit show of a survey. It looks like a student project.

It is indeed an utter shitshow. However, the "better" they do on some of those questions the more blatantly they're disregarding Ofsted guidance re political impartiality, which means you can raise some legitimate concerns on that basis. I think I would start by going for that stuff - eg displaying banners etc is explicitly discouraged, as is presenting contentious views as if they're fact. Have you looked at the clips of Miriam Cates asking the Head of Ofsted about political impartiality in schools in the Education Select Committee? It might be worth referencing that as well as the written guidance, to show that it's a hot issue and they need to be really careful.

Then I'd also look at the DfE guidance on sex and gender (quoted in the Transgender Trend website for ease of finding), and also raise safeguarding concerns if you have any around mixed-age LGBTQETC clubs. Good luck.

Check to see whether the Proud Trust produce gender stereotypical materials or suggest that kids can be "born in the wrong body" - if they do, DfE says school shouldn't work with them.

Also you could quote Cass Review saying that social transition is not a neutral intervention and should only be instigated under professional guidance - I.e. you're uncomfortable with it being presented as something to be encouraged without reference to responsible and considered diagnostic processes?

Sorry, just thinking aloud now, a bit chaotically!

Wow, that's appalling indoctrination!

I mean, to be fair you don't know the scoring system. Some of those things are genuinely progressive. You just need clarification on which are meant to be negative and which positive, and whether other points of view are adequately acknowledged.

That's an appalling piece of propaganda and far from being a balanced questionnaire for children in schools.
In addition to the excellent suggestions above about political bias, I'd be asking the school what their school data tells them about bullying and discrimination in the school in terms of all the different protected groups - disability / SEN, race, sex, religion? Why is this a priority? Are LGBT children underachieving across the board? more bullied than others? poor mental health? etc

What is their evidence that's led them to produce this dire questionnaire?

That survey is awful. Rainbow lanyards?!?! Our lanyards are colour coded to confirm if we are staff/visitors with dbs/visitors without dbs. But of course The Proud Trust wouldn't care about safeguarding.

Proud Trust:

www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4064311-Meeting-my-MP-about-the-Proud-Trust-sex-ed-materials

www.transgendertrend.com/proud-trust-nothing-proud/

www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4584553-the-proud-trust

www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/3915879-the-proud-trust

They of the 'sex dice game' for children.

My first thought, looking at page one, is that this is something being done to present to Stonewall as evidence that they did the things that they were told to do to keep / improve their ranking in the SW list of nonsense.

The idea that any school child could be referred to the Proud Trust raises so many red flags

Thanks for the advice, I have written a letter objecting strongly to this survey being conducted in the school, with some references provided above. Sadly, having raised it in a parent’s group, none of the other parents seem that bothered. However, none of them have received the email either. Would the school be singling out certain children to feed to the researcher? I do hope not! My daughter has very short hair and hangs out with an alternative crowd that include some girls who have recently taken to identifying as boys. I would be very concerned if there was some attempt to target those children in particular to answer this survey on pronouns, toilets and teacher’s rainbow lanyard!

I would keep her off school on Monday to be honest

It's "showing a deliberate lack of support" for LGBT+++++ to not participate in events (unspecified) or to not wear a rainbow lanyard! Outrageous.

What happens when the results inevitably come back accusing the school of being riddled with transphobes especially the staff?

Will the headteacher walk the plank a la Susie Green?

🍿

that is an astoundingly bad survey. It’s dangerously written and deeply unethical.

It’s full of leading questions that make it abundantly clear what the ‘morally correct’
answer is. How is a student who is uncomfortable with being forced to share toilets and changing rooms with opposite sex students supposed to respond? it’s didactic and outright discriminatory in several ways.

There is clearly no intention to learn about students’ actual experiences or perspectives behind that survey. None.

It’s shockingly bad.

And why is there an expectation that students should be seeing other students kissing around school?

What is the alternate task instead? Is it some sort of gender re-education task?

It’s a pilot study? For whom, and funded by whom?

If it’s associated with a university, I’d suggest contacting the chair of the ethics committee to complain about unethical
research practice. It is not acceptable to write a survey that clearly vilifies people with different views and then ask school
children to complete it in school. That’s abusive.

does the survey come from a university or a teaching program or similar? there should be an ethics committee approval before a survey is given to kids. ask the school who is collecting the data, why, where the informed consent is and what ethics committee approved this.

Yes. And then make a formal complaint to the chair of the ethics committee.

On many grounds. The survey is potentially harmful to students, including those with a range of protected characteristics and very clearly instructs them in what they should think.

It is seeking to shape you people’s attitudes and influence practice in the school, not survey for actual student experiences or perspectives.

Make exactly the same complaint - formally - to the HT too.

HTs have a responsibility to act as gatekeepers to safeguard the children in their school from problematic ‘research’. Indeed, didactic and highly moralised social activism masquerading as research.