Cass report & School Policies - Write to your child's school for evidence their current policies and practices are lawful and in line with the Cass Report (links + starter info)

[LogicLoverLlama]

This post is to give you, concerned parents, enough information to write to your child's school (or their old school) and ask if the schools policies are both lawful and inline with the Cass Report.

It is essential we keep momentum on this going, and the more schools that are contacted across the entire country, the more this will be a national conversation. Head teachers talk to each other, if enough of them get this email there will be movement.

Please write to your headteacher, your governors REGARDLESS of if your school uses the Brighton Trans Toolkit or not - the legal advice below will force the school to reevaluate their policies inline with the law and Cass immediately.

Most of this post below was kindly provided by a Brighton support group, PSHE Brighton, with full permission to share widely.

The legal advise given by Karon Monaghan KC linked below is of central importance. Our children's schools are not following the law and we believe putting children at significant risk.

Here is a copy of an article from The Observer which focuses on the unlawfulness of the Brighton and Hove City Council Trans Inclusion Schools Toolkit: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/apr/13/schools-in-england-and-wales-using-gender-toolkit-risk-being-sued-by-parents

The advice from Karon Monaghan KC who has reviewed the Toolkit found it to be emphatically unlawful. A copy of the advice is available via this link: https://content.doyleclayton.co.uk/hubfs/Advice%20of%20Karon%20Monaghan%20KC.pdf

Karon Monaghan KC is the leading equalities and human rights KC in the UK https://www.matrixlaw.co.uk/member/karon-monaghan/ .

Monaghan on Equality Law, published by Oxford University Press, is the authoritative guide to the law in this area and is routinely referred to as an authority in court cases and cited by Judges in their judgements: https://global.oup.com/academic/product/monaghan-on-equality-law-9780199603237

Therefore, her advice is authoritative and cannot be readily ignored.

As set out in the article one family has written to Brighton and Hove City Council and to their local school requesting the Toolkit is withdrawn. The legal advice is relevant across the whole of the UK, including Scotland and across any school (nursery, primary, secondary or 6th form or academy school and any local authority). The family have waived legal privilege (confidentiality) on the Advice so that it can be used by any other parent, governor, teacher, or social worker in the UK in circumstances where they may not usually be able to access such robust legal opinion.

If you live outside of Brighton and Hove, you can send a copy of the Monaghan Advice to your school or local authority and ask them to provide evidence that their current policies and practices within the school/council are lawful in line with the Cass Report (Final Report – Cass Review) and the Monaghan Advice. If those policies are not in line with this legal advice, you can request that policies are withdrawn. You can also ask to test any third-party providers curriculum content against the Cass Report and Monaghan Advice to ensure that this too is appropriate and lawful.

If you live in Brighton and Hove where we know the Trans Inclusion Schools Toolkit is applied to all schools and social services and was authored by Allsorts Youth Project, you can write to your school (Headteacher and/or Chair of Governors) and/or the council, attaching the Cass Report and the Monaghan Advice and request/advise the following:

"The school immediately withdraws the Trans Inclusion Schools Toolkit. Reminding schools that failure to adhere to the law places them at risk of legal action by any parent with a child registered at the school. Stating this does not commit you to taking that legal action.

The school immediately review all their policies and practice pertaining to responding to gender-distressed children and safeguarding to ensure its lawfulness in accordance with the Cass Report and the Monaghan Advice. For schools to be assured that they are compliant, the safest mechanism is for them to adopt the DfE Draft Guidance for Gender Questioning Children on an interim basis until such time as the final guidance is published by the Government.

The school immediately withdraw all PSHE/RSE curriculum materials created internally and those provided by third-party providers pending review of lawfulness in line with the Cass Report and the Monaghan Advice.

The school immediately cancels all assemblies, lessons and curriculum activity using material published by or presentations from Allsorts Youth Project. There are legitimate concerns about the lawfulness of Allsorts Youth Project materials being used in schools or this organisation conducting classes or assemblies as they are the authors of the Trans Inclusion Schools Toolkit. Until such time as all content has been reviewed and is in line with the Cass Report, the Monaghan Advice and Government guidance, PSHE/RSE lessons should follow the DfE Draft Guidance for Gender Questioning Children and pay close attention to the Government Review of RSE which is due to publish soon."

If contacting Brighton and Hove City Council write to the Leader of the Council, Bella Sankey [email protected] and you can copy it to your own local councillor, the names of which you can find on the council website and tend to use the same formation of [email protected]. Also copy your correspondence to Deb Austin, Director of Children's, Schools and Families [email protected]

If you are a social worker you may wish to provide the Cass Report and the Monaghan Advice to your local authority and ask for assurances that all policy, practice, and training is compliant with it. Also relevant for you is the judgement in the Rachel Meade employment tribunal which protects you from discrimination for asking this question or holding gender critical beliefs. (https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/65c10bf3704282000d752266/R_Meade_v_Westminster_City_Council_and_Social_Work_England.pdf)

Please - write that email today

My local school(s) have been easy to get to, luckily one of them is already on the list from the articles above..

Thanks so much for all of this

Anything to spread the word!

Brilliant thread. Parents must feel empowered to challenge schools outsourcing education policy and time to what are essentially queer theory activists.

For parents new to this issue these two organisations are a mine of information, help and support:

Safe Schools Alliance : https://safeschoolsallianceuk.net/

Transgender Trend: Trend www.transgendertrend.com www.transgendertrend.com/

Thank you.

The fight at DDs school continues, still standing by their decision to use "My Dad's a she" and to teach that humans can change sex.

This is the next evidence to bring against that.

We need the school guidelines to be issued asap. Certain schools have got themselves into a complete mess, legally and morally, about this and desperately need something to control out of control transactivist staff.

Selling sex change as desirable to children just isn't a sustainable position

Agreed. Could really benefit from a standard draft letter to use as a basis for mine... any suggestions?

This only works for schools who ARE using the toolkit: but steal away

Dear xxx -

This email is being circulated to all school governors as well as education representatives at xxx Council. Please forward this email on to all the governors directly from yourself.

I write to you as a concerned parent who has recently learned of the unlawfulness of the so called "trans toolkit" in use at xxxxx, detailed in this article: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/apr/13/schools-in-england-and-wales-using-gender-toolkit-risk-being-sued-by-parents

The advice from Karon Monaghan KC who has reviewed the Toolkit found it to be emphatically unlawful. A copy of the advice is available via this link: https://content.doyleclayton.co.uk/hubfs/Advice%20of%20Karon%20Monaghan%20KC.pdf

Monaghan on Equality Law, published by Oxford University Press, is the authoritative guide to the law in this area and is routinely referred to as an authority in court cases and cited by Judges in their judgements: https://global.oup.com/academic/product/monaghan-on-equality-law-9780199603237

Therefore, her advice is authoritative and cannot be readily ignored.

As a parent of a child at xxxxx, I insist that the following happens without any delay:

The school immediately withdraws the Trans Inclusion Schools Toolkit. Failure to adhere to the law places you at risk of legal action.

The school immediately review all their policies and practice pertaining to responding to gender-distressed children and safeguarding to ensure its lawfulness in accordance with the Cass Report and the Monaghan Advice. For St Luke’s to be assured that they are compliant, the safest mechanism is for them to adopt the DfE Draft Guidance for Gender Questioning Children on an interim basis until such time as the final guidance is published by the Government.

The school immediately withdraw all PSHE/RSE curriculum materials created internally and those provided by third-party providers pending review of lawfulness in line with the Cass Report and the Monaghan Advice.

The school immediately cancels all assemblies, lessons and curriculum activity using material published by or presentations from Allsorts Youth Project. There are legitimate concerns about the lawfulness of Allsorts Youth Project materials being used in schools or this organisation conducting classes or assemblies as they are the authors of the Trans Inclusion Schools Toolkit. Until such time as all content has been reviewed and is in line with the Cass Report, the Monaghan Advice and Government guidance, PSHE/RSE lessons should follow the DfE Draft Guidance for Gender Questioning Children and pay close attention to the Government Review of RSE which is due to publish soon.

Given xxx perilous financial position, and those of the council and other schools across the town, it is not in the best interests of pupils to risk legal action, not to mention the ultimate cost to the tax payer.

I urge you to take the action listed above immediately, in the best interests of the children at xxxx, which I am certain is the thing that gets you to school in the morning.

I look forward to your response to this before the end of this week, 19th April 2024.

Thanks for this, I'm going to go through it all once I've gotten over the lurgy and contact our school.
I have just been on and checked and all references to being a stonewall champion school have been removed from their website .
I'm also going to write, again, in support of our local MP Miriam Cates.

And if your school does Not use the toolkit - you could try

Subject: Urgent Request: Review of School Policies Regarding Transgender Children
Dear [School Name] Administration,
I am writing to you as a concerned parent regarding the policies and practices of [School Name] regarding transgender children. Regardless of whether our school utilizes the Brighton Trans Toolkit, recent legal advice from Karon Monaghan KC has highlighted the need for all schools to review their policies to ensure compliance with the law and the recommendations of the Cass Report.
It is imperative that immediate action is taken to ensure the safety and well-being of all students. Therefore, I request the following actions be taken without delay:

1- Review of Policies and Practices:
[School Name] must conduct a thorough review of all policies and practices pertaining to responding to gender-distressed children and safeguarding to ensure compliance with the Cass Report and the Monaghan Advice. This review should prioritize the adoption of the DfE Draft Guidance for Gender Questioning Children on an interim basis until final guidance is issued by the Government.

2- Withdrawal of Curriculum Materials:
All PSHE/RSE curriculum materials, whether created internally or provided by third-party providers, should be withdrawn pending a comprehensive review of their lawfulness in line with the Cass Report and the Monaghan Advice.

3- Cancellation of Activities Involving Allsorts Youth Project Materials:
Any assemblies, lessons, or curriculum activities utilizing materials from or presented by the Allsorts Youth Project (or related or similar organisations of any type) should be canceled immediately. There are concerns about the lawfulness of these materials, and until they have been reviewed and deemed compliant with legal requirements, PSHE/RSE lessons should adhere strictly to the DfE Draft Guidance for Gender Questioning Children.

Failure to adhere to legal mandates places [School Name] at risk of legal action by parents. Therefore, I urge [School Name] to take prompt and decisive action to address these concerns.
Sincerely,
[Your Name]
[Your Contact Information]

I read the Brighton toolkit thread and then trawled my daughter’s school’s website for any relevant policies and couldn’t find a thing. It’s a tiny rural primary, do you think it’s hidden on there or is it possible the issue’s never arisen and they don’t have anything? I’m happy to write to them and know plenty of likeminded parents there but I wonder if they’ll look at me like I’ve got two heads.

Of course it’s your call, but, they WILL have a policy. Does the policy align with Cass, or Brighton? Don’t know until you ask. (It’s not Cass, unless it’s a very new policy).

I think saying you read the observer / guardian link and you want to be reassured , would be legitimate for any parent, and that’s all we are asking anyway?

Thank you OP.

Hopefully the school will be unaffected but we've seen how easy it is for schools to be influenced by a few noisy staff or parents unthinkingly pushing this, asking the school for their policy seems a good idea. They need to be prepared to face down adults trying to influence them to introduce gender identity to children.

Thank you.

Bringing up the courage to do it.. they already think I'm a bit of a weirdo! 😂

could you point me to the Brighton toolkit thread please? many thanks :)

Another one of mine I am afraid - https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5049526-brighton-and-hove-council-trans-tool-kit-is-likely-illegal-brighton-family-threatening-legal-action-if-not-withdrawn

@LogicLoverLlama thank you :)

Sigh. I've had a skim of the advice. Why does this advice, whilst referencing and prioritising EA 2010 barely mention applicable safeguarding law? The Children Act? Safeguarding is mentioned in passing and KCSIE but KCSIE should be more important than EA2010, children are not mini adults. In KCSIE, it is noted that safeguarding law has primacy over GDPR - if anyone ever bothers to test it in court I'd be highly surprised if the same isn't true of EA 2010.

It's a real shame this wasn't explored.

Treating children like mini adults which treating the Equality Act as the most important law for children does, used to be considered a safeguarding red flag at least.

And if we're going down that route, age is a PC and we treat children very very differently because of their age (to keep them safe!). So if you only look at things through EA 2010 we are discriminating against children expecting them to be in school and not in jobs, driving cars, going out to bars at night etc. It's age discrimination to stop a 5 year old from getting a driving license. There are children who would leap on this argument.

It's playing by the TRA rules. It's disappointing. Where are the lawyers conversant with safeguarding law and the Children Act, the Education Act, Working Together etc?

I mean it may be useful when talking to schools but I don't think it's helpful to schools to be constantly thinking about EA2010 when they should be safeguarding all the pupils in the school (and educating them, if they've got time for that) in the best way they can.

Obviously schools should be operating in line with Cass and if they follow the government guidance they will be.

I hope the government guidance will be made statutory as I think this would resolve a lot of problems.

@Dumbledoreslemonsherbets honestly I don't know about the legal advice, only that someone who knows far more about the law than me presumably took the path that would lead to the highest chance of success, I know that this advice is being used, live, to challenge schools today - we await results however

Yes, and I suppose it's inevitable that we've ended up here given the TRAs have framed everything not completely capitulating to their demands as discrimination under EA 2010 and have very much breached normal safeguarding by claiming children are competent to decide their sex at 3 or 4.

I just think accepting this framing is bad for state schools (as a governor and a parent and knowing quite a bit about how schools work). But hopefully we can move on from this once their demands are debunked on their terms (only considering EA2010 and not the Children or Education Acts) to get back to a safeguarding first approach.

Or maybe they'll win and we'll have 12 year olds staffing our call centres and being deemed competent to consent to sex in the future. Who knows. Feeling demoralised.

It can be quite hard to see where organisations like Allsorts are hosted within school policies.

Here’s one example - p8, section 11 of this school’s Accessibility Policy.

This text leaves the definition of whether a pupil is Trans, Non Binary and/or Gender Questioning to the Trans Inclusion Toolkit and Allsorts training and advice.

No further information provided on who’s being trained with what info in the school team, nor what involvement Allsorts has with the pupils.

No mention in PHSE, bullying or Equalities, policy areas that would typically address this kind of topic.

https://www.elmgrove.brighton-hove.sch.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Elm-Grove-Accessibility-Plan-2021-22.pdf