Sex not gender, No Outsiders changing the Equality Act, DepHead/DSL captured

[Vebrithien]

Well, here we are, with a whole new thread!

www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4713725-please-help-gender-not-sex-on-a-school-protected-characteristics-poster-just-spoken-to-the-head?page=10&reply=123546552

Thank you all, so so much for the support you have given me.

I am currently working on the draft of the message I want to send.

Long story short, DD's primary school displays posters by No Outsiders, showing the 9 protected characteristics of the Equality Act. Sex as been replaced with gender.

I have raised this with the Head, the assistant Head, and the Deputy Head (DepHead, as DH just doesn't work here). I have been reassured that sex is synonymous with gender in law, and, through an email stream, No Outsiders have reassured the school that it is deliberate, gender is easier to teach children than sex, especially as some will snigger at sex.

Oh, and teaching that gender is the difference between boys and girls, it makes it easier to then explain gender reassignment later on.

I'll put the message from the DepHead and No Outsiders here, and also my reply, in its current state.

Thank you all again!

What an absolute fucking shambles - bon courage and well done to you all. Hope it doesn't get that far but it does sound like they are laying themselves open to legal action...

“Does anyone know of anyone else we can contact?“

You could and write to the schools minister at DfE (Damien hinds) cc-ing the Equalities minister (kemi badenoch) - it would not solve your problem but every piece of evidence about how schools are behaving will help inform longer term policy making. Your letter will be read and the response may set out government policy which you can then quote further in your correspondence with school.

sorry you are going through this.

Thank you.

Would I need to send an actual letter? If so, how does one cc in another person?

I could easily turn my potted history that I typed up last week, into a letter.

@Vebrithien You can email, all emails should have the ability to cc people in ( sorry if I am being too basic). You could draft a letter and attach it to the email in that case you put “cc: name” under your name at the bottom of the letter after your signature.

Kemi Badenock’s email is [email protected]
Damien Hinds’ email is [email protected]

That is wonderful!

I did mean, do I need to write a paper and ink letter, with an envelope and stamp?

If email is acceptable, that'll be the way I go.

Email is absolutely fine and probably preferred.

Fabbo!

I was imagining having to hoick out the fountain pen, and find some nice quality paper!

Thank you, and also for the email addresses.

Thanks @Princessglittery - I was coming here to give the same addresses. These are their Parliamentary addresses (ie address as an MP) rather than their departmental (ie address as a minister eg an address @ education.gov) but the latter are hard to find and parliamentary offices should pass correspondence on to the ministerial office, who will then pass it on to some civil Servants to answer.

You need to make sure that your email sets out an ask for them as ministers rather than just relay your experience, as otherwise you’re likely to just get some stock lines about how to complain to/about a school. For example you could include a request that your experience be considered when DfE next updates relevant guidance, and ask when such updates are planned and whether there will be a consultation. Or whether the minister agrees that the conduct you set out in your letter is inconsistent with DfE guidance. Ooh, you could also ask if the minister has met with eg Safer schools alliance, whose advice you have found helpful.

On reflection, I think perhaps write a separate letter to Kemi Badenoch with questions tailored to her portfolio (“as equalities minister, will you press for clearer guidance for schools”) and say to each that you have written to the other, rather than cc’ing. That way you maximise the chance of getting two responses.

(Sorry slow response. A small child staged an intervention as i was writing!)

Small child interventions are completely understood.

I was awoken at ridiculous o'clock this morning, still in the dark hours, to DS, standing next to my side of the bed. With a full potty.

I'll have a play about with what I've already got, and see if I can come up with a couple of letters/emails to the aforementioned MPs.

I do wonder if it is worth mentioning in them, that I cannot go to my own MP, because she has shown that she believes TWAW, even to the detrimental of women in prisons.

Mention you approached your MP (name) but they were not prepared to support you.

I would say that the DH appears to be unaware of the other protected characteristics and doesn’t seem to understand (to quote Kemi) that the EA2010 is a shield not a sword. The treatment of the parent of a multi faith pupil shows a complete lack of understanding of and respect for other beliefs and faiths.

Include an action e.g. that the school does not teach gender identity theory as fact. All you are asking for is a balanced age appropriate approach ….

Agree with @Coffeestain 's suggestion of two emails and not just cc'ing.

A possible point to make is that there does need to be central policy to address activist agendas in schools because parents at an individual level - even when it's a group of parents as you are and it's even harder alone - find it incredibly difficult to get schools and school staff to follow clear guidance around political impartiality, age appropriate materials, safeguarding, and transparency with parents. The school complaints process is slow and very frustrating - as you have found. The school is saying they are doing one thing, whilst actually doing another (also known as lying or at best bending the truth). It's been almost a year since this began, right? And the school have basically ignored you and dug their heels in - they're still using materials that teach gender ideology as fact and treating those who don't believe in gender ideology in a discriminatory / bullying way. And there is no clear way to whistleblow / get action to make the school follow guidance.

The school is NOT following guidance but there seems no way to challenge this as a parent. You are a highly organised group that have followed the processes and policies laid out and yet still, the school is ploughing on breaching guidance merrily and simply trying to shut parents down who point this out.

In the most recent example of banning a parent for wrongthink, the Deputy Head has failed to follow government guidance, allow the parent to present their side, or consider the wellbeing of the child of the parent in question. All of which are serious failures to act professionally and may well also be illegal but what can the parent do? Go through a long winded complaints process which the school and governors can drag out endlessly if they want to, which would not be in the best interests of the children affected.

I actually think the school is breaching KCSIE as I do not believe gender ideology is something that primary level children can comprehend - we can't even get a definition that is easily comprehensible as adults - so is not age appropriate, is liable to cause confusion and may undermine sex-based safeguarding and teaching on consent ( either if single sex toilets, overnight accommodation or changing becomes mixed sex by stealth or if pupils feel by the introduction of books including 'preferred pronouns' and 'misgendering' they are compelled to use non-standard speech imposed by others and are unable to accurately speak about or risk assess the sex of adults). Not to mention undermining progress of pupils in learning the English language if they are taught that fundamental building blocks of the language such as pronouns, to which rules normally apply, can be changed on someone's whim.

MrsOvertonsWindow · Yesterday 17:40

Schools bar parents for serious acts - usually of aggression / violence. In all my years in LAs and schools I've never come across a parent being barred for questioning the school about the curriculum (and I've been involved in a number of cases).

What an excellent piece of advice (your entire post).

Long time lurker here - I am sorry you are going through this and am deeply impressed with the way you are handling the increasingly terrible situation.

One thought about how to get your message to the relevant Ministers though (based on years of experience as a former civil servant). If you write to them as MPs, they can only deal with your correspondence if you are a constituent of theirs. Their constituency office may forward the email to their departmental private office to ask for it to be processed there, but that will (a) lose you time and (b) get no advantage over writing to them as a Minister (I.e. it may still be delegated - though of course might not).

The best way to ensure something hits a Minister’s desk is usually to write to your own MP and ask him/her to relay your points to the relevant Ministers and ask for their views. Letters from MPs, including constituency correspondence, would not be delegated (at least not for sign-off, the initial drafting would still usually be delegated but that is unavoidable). I know your MP is captured but they may still do this because it is a process rather than something that involves expressing their own views. They would in this situation write not, as an engaged MP would, with a covering letter saying how much they agree with you, but with with a grudgingly curt “I’ve had this from my constituent, please can you give me a response I can send her” type of cover letter.

sorry, not raising this to put a damper on things, just trying to be helpful in getting your message where it needs to be. I can’t believe the world has gone as batshit crazy as it has. All power to your elbow.

PS: I agree with PP that writing two emails is better than just one, but if you are writing via your MP you would need to make the emails sufficiently different to justify them writing to two separate Ministers on your behalf, and there might be benefit in staggering them in time so that the letters don’t become merged in the departmental systems (I.e. wait for first response before sending second request). But there is no perfect way of doing this. Just a suggestion.

@AlexandraLeaving One of the features of gender ideology is everyone merrily breaking the law / not following procedure so if the MP is captured I don't think there's any guarantee they'd forward the emails on - which is why I wonder if there is a point to cc'ing the minister's mp email as you're writing asking for your email to be passed on?

My MP frequently breaks procedure e.g. does not respond to the emails of constituents. There seems no way to hold them to account given they're in a safe seat.

I can't help but feel there should be an easier way to raise concerns about serious systemic safeguarding failures in schools (because that's what we're talking about here). But here we are.

All the while our children are being brainwashed with regressive, harmful ideology that doesn't even make the faintest logical sense.

Yes, that is depressingly true. But it doesn’t negate the fact that, generally speaking, other MPs won’t respond to non-constituents.

Which leaves OP with the lottery of writing to the departmental correspondence address and hoping it’s not delegated to too low a level. Or writing to her MP and hoping it’s processed by his/her conscience office as standard “seek ministerial response” correspondence without it crossing the MP’s desk.

What a shit show.

Why can't you copy the relevent minister via their mp address into any email to your MP? You're the one sending the email, you're a voter. What's the problem here?

Kemi's MP office won't respond as not their job, but they'll know if it's not passed on when the email states specifically you want it passed on to the relevant ministers. Kemi at least seems very switched on to the way people are doing this, so I suspect the MP - however captured - would be inclined not to file in the bin if they knew that Kemi's office was in CC.

Honestly, that's what I do.

The school is breaking the rules all over the place in a way which can directly harm children's wellbeing and safeguarding, compared to what they're doing cc'ing someone you don't need to isn't a big deal - they're grown up elected officials, they can cope. And it is probably necessary if you don't want your email to languish in a pile for months and then get mysteriously lost.

Edited to say: Now I realise this is what I should have done for the last few occasions where my MP clearly filed my messages into his bin.

In my area it is virtually impossible to change school within the area. You would literally have to be kicked out of school.
Obviously none of these people care about the children

Yes, exactly. The children's education, safety and wellbeing should come first

Instead the Dep Head is suggesting that if families question when the school isn't following guidance and where parents don't believe the same as her (which she's dressing up as 'the ethos of the school') then their children's education and friendships should be disrupted because they're not welcome in the same school as her. Why should those children have to leave their friendships? Disrupt their education? Starting a new school is hard... not to be undertaken lightly.

She's relying on scared parents shutting up. She's a bully. And she's putting her political activist agenda above the wellbeing of the children in the school.

She's relying on scared parents shutting up. She's a bully. And she's putting her political activist agenda above the wellbeing of the children in the school.

Sounds entirely par for the course for TRAs.

Is there a way to apply school bullying policies to the staff?

The optics are not good here and indicate bullying, for which there is no upper or lower age limit.
Nitin Sawhney drew an interesting analogy on his Twitter several days ago.