But it is "in schools" - help SSA amplify these terrible failures of safeguarding

[2fallsfromSSA]

Over the last week or so, education leaders have denied that inappropriate and often unlawful RSE is being taught in our schools.

This thread makes for very sobering reading and needs to be in front of your MP and the Secretary of State for Education. Parents need to holding leaders to account and asking what the government is going to do about this horrific failure of safeguarding.

twitter.com/SafeSchools_UK/status/1635573520942891008?s=20

Please write to your MP and the Secretary of State for Education and include this thread. Copy in OFSTED and the Children's Commissioner

If you are on twitter please share and tag your MP, Gillian Keegan and the Children's Commissioner. (need the @ symbol before) Rachel_deSouza, GillianKeegan, ofstednews

www.writetothem.com/
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Also, use this thread to talk to you own schools. Find out what is being taught and demand to see the resources. People are finally listening, we need to ensure they now act.

Yes, heard that on Woman's Hour this morning and it struck me as really unfair and stupid not to have had Miriam in the studio to explain and defend the evidence behind her intervention at last week's PMQs.

Yep!

Because I posted a very factual message on the year group WhatsApp group, saying that the school uses these No Outsiders posters, I have raised complaints over the last 3 months, and they have been brushed aside. This was in relation to an survey the school had sent round (from Diversity Role Models!) asking if we as parents were confident that they protect students and parents with protected characteristics. So I thought the parents should know that they contested what one of the protected characteristic was.

The school went mad that I was breaking the parental code of conduct, I got a phone call, an email threatening the police if I had posted anything defamatory, and the entire school was sent an email, telling them that they should not discuss any concerns about the school on any social media, including WhatsApp. They also told me to delete the messages (I couldn't, as they were beyond the 'delete all' date).

There are now a group of parents who contacted me, and we are now attempting to get our grubby mitts on all of their RSE resources...

I recently spoke to my child’s primary school after they read Alien Nation (produced by the Proud Trust) in class. When my child described the book, I immediately recognised it (Planet Boy and Planet Girl!) and I remembered that I’d read Maya’s thread about it on Twitter. The Head listened carefully to my concerns, and the upshot is that the school is going to review its teaching of gender and sexuality. The book may not be the worst example of the inappropriate resources being used in schools, but I pointed out that it breaks the DfE guidance by suggesting “that children might be a different gender based on their personality and interests or the clothes they prefer to wear”. It also isn’t evidence based and doesn’t “contain robust facts and statistics”. It relies heavily on harmful, outdated stereotypes; conflates sex and gender all the way through; and implies that all boundaries are bad (a safeguarding concern). The school had been supplied the book and programme of work by a local council. Of course schools are busy and want to do the “right” thing so will go to these external providers, but essentially they are outsourcing their thinking to a provider (eg local council) who is in turn outsourcing its thinking to an external group (eg the Proud Trust) - the school might then reasonably assume that the resources are appropriate and meet the guidelines because they’ve come from a supposed “expert” supplier.

Thanks to SSA and Transgender Trend as I used their resources to formulate my arguments. And of course thanks to all the wonderful Mumsnet feminist vipers! I have also found a couple of like-minded local parents in the process…

Holy fuck, Vebrithien! That's absolutely appalling, I'm so sorry. Must have been enormously stressful.

I'd be tempted to make an official complaint.

Amazing. Well done!

@ArabellaScott I'd read so many other people's stories of raising concerns and speaking out and I never thought I'd be "that parent" but I realised I couldn't let this one go!

ScarlettBunting · Today 14:06

I recently spoke to my child’s primary school after they read Alien Nation (produced by the Proud Trust) in class. When my child described the book, I immediately recognised it (Planet Boy and Planet Girl!) and I remembered that I’d read Maya’s thread about it on Twitter.

Oh, that one is new to me. Well done to you.

Maya's Twitter thread on the book in question...

Thank you ScarlettBunting. As you point out upthread:
"The school had been supplied the book and programme of work by a local council. Of course schools are busy and want to do the “right” thing so will go to these external providers, but essentially they are outsourcing their thinking to a provider (eg local council) who is in turn outsourcing its thinking to an external group (eg the Proud Trust) - the school might then reasonably assume that the resources are appropriate and meet the guidelines because they’ve come from a supposed “expert” supplier".

It's frightening that schools where safeguarding is meant to be the priority (get it wrong and Ofsted puts a school into a category) have staff that can look at these materials and not see them for what they are.

It doesn't help that Ofsted have only just removed themselves from the tentacles of Stonewall and the NAHT (headteacher's union) are in denial . They're desperate that parents don't look at their grim trans guidelines for schools (written with Stonewall of course). The guidelines demonstrate that the NAHT are massively culpable for pushing this ideology with no due diligence about the groups involved and embedding gender ideology throughout schools. They're now hidden (but some of us had already downloaded them).

Between Ofsted, the DfE, local authorities, countless politicians and all the unions, vulnerable & often mentally unwell children don't stand a chance. Unbelievably, it's only parents who can stop this now.

I found the book to be even worse than Maya’s thread suggests - if you can imagine such a thing! The Alien Leader “decides” whether to send the baby aliens to Planet Girl or Planet Boy based on whether they’re pink or blue (actually they’re green with a symbol on their tummy). If the symbol is a different colour, the Leader “guesses” which planet to send the baby to. (I’m not sure what these babies represent? There are a lot of them in the picture, suggesting that it’s often not obvious which sex category a baby belongs to …) “Of course, the Leader would sometimes get it wrong” - of course! Apparently this is because the babies don’t “fit neatly into just two groups”. Then comes the killer sentence, and the one which sums up the conflation of sex and gender: “They sometimes got it wrong because they thought that the aliens’ bodies could tell us something about what the alien would be like when they were older”.

The aliens on the two planets decide they don’t like the rules (pink aliens must wear dresses and be feminine etc) so they rip them up. Fine. The rules are sexist and old-fashioned. But then some of them still aren’t happy. The book never explains why. There are no rules any more so how can they “know” they belong on the other planet? They build the bridge (in the trans flag colours) and then they build Planet Non-Binary (the biggest and most exciting planet) because some of them still don’t “feel comfortable”, and then EVERYONE is happy apparently. They can all come and go easily. No boundaries, no problems at all! We also get introduced to terms such as “cis” and “trans”, and on one page we are suddenly commanded to RESPECT PRONOUNS! It is political ideology presented as settled fact and bears no relation to reality, and it is being taught to children who are mostly prepubescent and haven’t yet started sex education.

God, what nonsense, ScarlettBunting. Schools really need to pay attention to what they are doing.

> The school went mad that I was breaking the parental code of conduct,
> I got a phone call, an email threatening the police if I had posted anything
> defamatory, and the entire school was sent an email, telling them that they
> should not discuss any concerns about the school on any social media,
> including WhatsApp.

As a fairly recent parent Governor I'm not surprised about this, but they really can't enforce this crap. As long as you have been civil, calm and factual there is nothing they can stop you doing to hold the school to account.

I've found headteachers to be very defensive when it comes to dealing with 'uppity' parents, as the reputation of the school especially if an Ofsted inspection is due is usually a key indicator of results, and a massive source of pride for the head, even if the reality is far from their own perception.

Find out who the Governors are from the school website, try to find who is on the pastoral committee who can represent your views. Check out the school's RSE policy and when it's next reviewed and get any gender crap removed. I've just managed to do get my school's policy changed - with a fight - to say that parents can request the RSE materials and remove the part that "everyone has a gender identity". It's a step forward.

ScarlettBunting · Yesterday 14:56

Maya's Twitter thread on the book in question...

Good grief, what an absolute load of clap-trap it is.

Well done, eastend!

Just popping in to say that Tanya Carter from SSA will be live on Radio 4 at noon today debating RSE with Sophie Whitehead from the School of Sexuality Education. Please tune in. We hope to do some live tweeting too.

Exciting!!!

Ooh, great! Thanks!

I am behind on R4.

The explanation of the "play dough activity" by the provider is so, so misinformed. The idea that children could step out, if they're embarrassed is simply wrong. No one is going to put themselves in that kind of situation.

Most worryingly, it misses the children and adults who've been sexually abused. Which quite rightly, Safe Schools picks up on.

I paused it at this point as I found it really upsetting that we could even have a situation in which "sex education providers" could be permitted to even push lessons like this. How are we at this point? It's so wrong.

And it could all have been done so well. It's such a damaging waste.

twitter.com/SafeSchools_UK/status/1636700458516357121?s=20

Only caught the last few minutes, so I'll have to wait until it appears on BBC Sounds. It appeared to be the second time this week that the BBC has discussed Miriam Cates's question at PMQs and said her claims have been debunked, but without having her on air to defend them. (The other time was on Woman's Hour earlier this week.)

2fallsfromSSA · Today 12:35

twitter.com/SafeSchools_UK/status/1636700458516357121?s=20

Tanya comments on the playdoh activity. Children have come home upset that they have had to sit in a mixed sex groups and model and model genitals.

Good grief! This was going on in a school and not one teacher thought to intervene! Not one single teacher thought, "What? Hang on a minute this is completely unacceptable, stop this now."

I find that absolutely mind boggling, it's very difficult to accept that it was allowed to happen, without comment.

Bloody hell - it's grooming. Actually of both the children and the teachers whose brains must have either fallen out, been indoctrinated or are paedophiles themselves to think this is ok. NO decent person thinks this is ok. None.

It's fine to model playdoh genitals; it's fine to touch playdoh genitals, what comes next for the paedo, eh? It's obvious. It's breaking down boundaries and COMPLETELY against what is in KCSIE - ALL providers should be trained on KCSIE and safeguarding as all school staff have to be.

Massive ginormous safeguarding loophole that can be seen from space.

People need to lose their jobs. And DfE need to get a grip.

I think the playdoh genital modelling activity, and probably a few other supposedly innocuous craft activities (e.g. from Welsh Government's dodgy RSE gurus) cross over into abusive. If there's a message for younger children about needing to feel comfortable with and to consent to affectionate hugs or kisses, surely it's obvious that getting meaningful consent for these sorts of activities is necessary and isn't straightforward. What about the child who is mortified by this? What about the child who is embarrassingly over-enthusiastic? And obviously what about the child who could be either of those things because of abuse? It's not like any other curriculum area.

And the expecting children to be adult enough to have the confidence to step out when they're in a room with an adult who is responsible for their safety and wellbeing, is in a position of authority and is telling them it's ok to do it? Where everyone else is doing it and they'd have to have super confidence to stand up? Grooming 101.

I hate this idea that children are mini-adults that are confident enough to challenge those in authority over them. That in itself is anti-safeguarding. Children are not mini adults, if they were they'd be living independently and in jobs, not in school.

Yes, it is abusive and it's eroding boundaries to make it easier for adults to abuse in more serious ways.