School Guidance out Tomorrow

[Igneococcus]

I don't have time to read this fully right now, but it sounds messy:

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/789e1fd3-4a82-4b71-a0bf-e165b5f410b1?shareToken=054150e42690555c0ffe751a53776e92

@rogdmum makes excellent points. And the one about HMC is really important regardless of whether your child is in private or state because the children deserve proper safeguarding and for their school to follow the law in both settings.

True but it's a bit different if some children are being compelled into a belief system and others aren't. It goes a bit beyond 'well this school is much better on SEND but terrible at Maths; that one has a great Geography department, oh and that one has awful buildings, but a great Drama teacher...'.

There is ideological indoctrination of children going on, compelled speech. It's not 'patchy educational provision'.

I think it's reasonable for schools to be less than perfect where there aren't sufficient resources / they can't recruit teachers / don't have enough books etc but it's a bit different if it's an ideology which is explicitly being pushed on to children by teachers. That's not an 'we just don't have the resources' thing that's a 'deliberately indoctrinating children' thing

And it's all the more awful BECAUSE resources are stretched so thin elsewhere. Teachers should not be fucking teaching kids about being born in the wrong body and all the Mermaids bollocks taking up school time when they're not even getting a decent education in Maths. Teachers should not be 'correcting' correct English pronouns (students penalised for 'misgendering') when they're not getting kids decent GCSEs in English!

It makes me so angry BECAUSE I know how stretched thin schools are. To allow time to be spent on confusing children and undermining basic scientific education (basic logic and critical thinking skills too) in this way is just so, so very terrible.

Of course, the lack of resources made all the sparkly outside organisations willing to come in for free more seductive. In some cases I think schools have been groomed.

There is ideological indoctrination of children going on, compelled speech. It's not 'patchy educational provision'.

And the indoctrination in PSHE is largely the government's fault for issuing statutory guidance saying that children have to be taught about gender identity and then signposting Stonewall as a useful source of resources.

If you want e.g. Ofsted to step in on that front, schools can legitimately argue that they are meeting their statutory obligations.

The govt belatedly saying 'oh we didn't mean that kids should be taught 72 genders' is just shit. They didn't specify what they meant, and are now complaining that schools did the wrong thing while trying to meet government requirements.

Alongside this guidence I think we need to make sure that schools are not reinforcing sex stereotypes. The world outside is highly gendered at the moment, but if schools could be environments where the gender pressure is taken off, where girls and boys both know they are free to explore whatever interests and styles they want without 'this is for girls, that's for boys' there would be less need for the escape hatch from expectations provided by identifying as something else. Some things (like sport) are sex separated for good reason, but we need to work towards a less sexist environment alongside this new approach. Easier said than done.

It’s signed off by both on the foreword (KB as Minister for Women and Equalities).

https://consult.education.gov.uk/equalities-political-impartiality-anti-bullying-team/gender-questioning-children-proposed-guidance/supporting_documents/Gender%20Questioning%20Children%20%20nonstatutory%20guidance.pdf

Thanks again to everyone who's clarified. Still finding Keegan's reticence about it a bit bizarre but, if it is significant, I'm sure all will become clear.

I’m betting that Keegan would rather this all went away quietly, she is in the TWAW camp.

Word locally (she’s my MP) is that she’s worried about her seat - definitely not a popular local MP and she’s fucked off a lot of people (I sincerely hope that’s not just wishful thinking on the part of the local rumour mill).

I’m well aware the guidance won’t help up here. However, the guidance also applies to private schools in England and given my direct experience with the current Vice Chair of HMC as well as Simon Hyde, the General Secretary of HMC, I’m aware of just how captured the independent sector is right at the very top. It’s unclear which way they will go - will the sector split or will they (under pressure from Melvyn and Simon) push back against the DfE guidance in their English schools.

As I said before, unfortunately my experience is not unique. Yes, Scotland is completely batshit, but I know so many parents who have had a parallel experience when trying to push back in their child’s English school, both state and independent.

I’d say we have it here at some local schools. Dc are freer to wear whatever and so far adults have not tried to indoctrinate with their TRA agenda, thankfully.

Primary though, secondary the usual stuff which this guidance will get rid of to a large extent.

It is younger but as we’ve seen some TRAs have no reticence over age.

Agree that DfE in particular (and Ofsted who I note seem to be doing something of a reverse ferret on this) are complicit and highly responsible.

But nevertheless, teaching gender identity ideology and allowing 'preferred' /compelled pronouns or social transition of children without parental knowledge is pretty clearly breaching several other bits of legislation and statutory guidance in various ways. It's not as if responsible, intelligent adults (SLT in particular) are incapable of saying to DfE and Ofsted 'this is incompatible with safeguarding / the rules around single sex toilets in schools / other massive safeguarding breach'. They do it on other issues.

As I note, my DD's secondary has fairly successfully navigated this while preserving single sex spaces and maintaining very good communication with parents. Having said that, about 3 years ago there were definite TRA teachers trying to push an agenda with some dodgy resources creeping into RSE but parents spoke to the school, the school listened (and I think realised how incompatible GI was with all their RSE slides about mutual respect etc) and they seem to have a really good way of handling it all now. It's quite openly discussed. There's a LGBT club. But the adults are in charge, and safeguarding is front and centre, and parents are involved with safeguarding.

One ideology is not allowed to ride roughshod over all others.

I also want to say that my DDs school is a state comprehensive. I don't know if the fact that there are a range of religious faiths and economic backgrounds among children in the school has acted as a bit of a shield against the crazier excesses of GI but I think the fact the school has to balance such a range of different circumstances - and in some cases quite hard realities - among their students perhaps does.

They do an amazing job, the Headteacher in particular is a wonderful woman. They should put her in charge of DfE, she'd sort it all out in no time, to the benefit of children's wellbeing.

And the indoctrination in PSHE is largely the government's fault for issuing statutory guidance saying that children have to be taught about gender identity and then signposting Stonewall as a useful source of resources.

The government were not prescriptive about what should be taught. More of us should have taken one look at the resources, acted like responsible adults, and said "No, this is dangerous nonsense".

I’ve pushed back on some horrendous PSHE resources (from a well known supplier) in my school. But it should also be acknowledged that schools are very wary of challenging the government or going against guidance that might see them falling foul of Ofsted.

Some of the appalling SRE materials outed as being used in some schools are testament to senior staff in schools not having the necessary oversight. The same with the depressing list of both individuals and organisations welcomed into some schools to gaslight children despite their evident unfitness for the job.
Too many adults - politicians, civil servants, teachers, unions and the rest - have failed their responsibilities to keep children safe and protected. Their willingness to accuse the (mainly women) who have raised concerns of being bigots calls into question their fitness for their roles.

There was nothing in the guidance preventing us from teaching "some people believe..." and "it's not possible to change sex".

How long has this been assumed in schools?

Did headteachers read the EqA in 2010 and start referring to children with preferred pronouns?

Did headteacher question this in 2010, or have they let children with gender identity always use the incorrect facilities and not informed parents?

Conversation has moved on but need to come back to this point;

"gender questioning" is not a protected characteristic.

This should (ideally) take a "gender questioning" child back to diagnosis and only those who've been given a diagnosis get a potential title of "trans child" and so the protected characteristic, in the most extreme circumstances and with huge amounts of professional involvement.

The term "trans child" as a common term needs to both be challenged and be phased out.

That's the label, the diagnosis and affirmation. Not self diagnosis.

Schools, teachers and the media need to be extremely clear who they're talking about here.

It's really significant that the term is "gender questioning" and not "trans children." It also means charities have to change their language.

Again, Deprogramming is going to take a while.

gender reassignment relies on clinical assessments. And is a process. That's what's protected.

Some of the appalling SRE materials outed as being used in some schools are testament to senior staff in schools not having the necessary oversight.

Yes yes yes. At my school, no one in the PSHE line of responsibility had even READ the materials which were simply dumped on teachers to deliver.

Except it doesn’t, it requires a proposal to undergo a process.

This is one of the areas of the new guidance highlighted as a potential legal issue - the Equality Act doesn’t require a level of distress before its protections kick in.

@noblegiraffe

I don't think that anyone without an agenda can say that the government guidance would absolutely not stand up in court. It is definitely unclear that it would, but that's not the same as the government being very likely to lose. If that is what the DfE lawyers actually said in their advice, then I think they have an agenda.

Does it though?

The Eq Act guidance says: In the Equality Act, gender reassignment means proposing to undergo, undergoing or having undergone a process to reassign your sex.

Do you need a clinical assessment if you’re at the “proposing to undergo” stage?

@noblegiraffe

Yes, it requires a proposal to undergo a process, but that "process" is not necessarily satisfied by a child walking into school and telling them they want to adopt a new name or pronouns.

Is it really credible that an 11 year old who says that he thinks he might be trans and wants to change his pronouns in class is actually proposing to undergo a process to reassign his sex at that point?

It has still not been defined what the proposal or process should be for children, merely that it should be rare.

The single sex facilities will still remain in schools and no one will be compelled to use pronouns

Plus sports will remain as per guidance

We have this for adults already in some cases and it stands

How long has this been assumed in schools?

A local secondary school was completed 7 years ago, with mixed sex single cubicle loos (floor to ceiling, off corridors) and gender queer symbols on those doors. Which means it was planned to be like that then.