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article one family has written to Brighton and Hove City Council and to their local school requesting the Toolkit is withdrawn.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:

I know this school... used to occasionally go to it in fact.
They need the full challenge. Every Brighton school does, Brighton is the most captured of all, if it falls they all fall

I share this frustration. I assume that it's because in terms of law, there's been no case law to evidence / confirm this?

Everyone who works in schools knows that safeguarding is the priority. We often interview senior staff with an in tray exercise to ensure that they can spot a safeguarding issue and make that the priority.

The response to the school guidelines from the EHRC was worrying in that it failed to mention safeguarding, implying that gender reassignment applied to all children unreservedly?

IANAL but it would be really helpful to hear from lawyers why safeguarding legislation is repeatedly ignored in all this?

@MrsOvertonsWindow all I can say is that the legal advice given is rock solid with regard to the equalities act etc, and that that is where it was felt the biggest impact could be had - not that safegaurding itself is disregarded and pushed to one side - it is of course as a concept the central reason why any of are doing this - ensuring our children are indeed safe

This legal threat forces schools to review their guidance with all of this in mind and ensure they are compliant, and I would expect safegaurding to "come for free" in that change

If anyone has written to their school and can share and anonymised responses please do!!!

The problem is @Dumbledoreslemonsherbets that KCSIE includes things that go against Cass, as far as I can tell. Our school's policy was updated to include the line that a child making a disclosure to a teacher saying they are trans is not, in itself, a safeguarding matter and no report is needed to either DSL or parents "unless it would increase the health or happiness of the child".

When I queried this, I was told it was taken straight from KCSIE which indeed it is - there is a line identical to this about "a child being trans is not, in itself" a safeguarding matter. And a number of other schools locally have the same stance of not informing parents or DSL of a child telling a teacher they are trans.

It turns out that this line was inserted following lobbying from Stonewall and Nancy Kelly, Stonewall CEO, took credit for getting this wording into KCSIE in a tweet detailing her achievements under her leadership.

Now, this seems to go completely against the Cass Report - a child saying they are trans does put them at risk of putting them on a schools-to-clinic pathway, schools should not be playing along with it or social transitioning them, and parents and DSL should be informed immediately.

The fact that PSHE lessons also teach gender identity as a concept, and teach children to immediately affirm a new name and pronouns if another child asks for this, also goes against Cass. However the school claims they have to teach this as anti-bullying on the basis of the protected characteristic of gender reassignment.

I have a meeting with the head next week about this and I still don't know how to square the circle UNLESS they accept the draft schools guidance that gender ideology is a contested political stance. They are saying as it's still in draft they don't know if they need to follow it.

Should political lobby groups be able to insert wording into the statutory safeguarding document for schools? Hunt has bragged about this. The answer I'd hope would be 'obviously not'.

KCSIE does change / is updated each year, so I would hope next year will see some much more careful wording and the separation out of LGB and T following the consultation on government guidance, the guidance itself and Cass.

The definition of 'emotional abuse' in KCSIE applies to the act of compelling all the children in the school to lie about sex, regardless of reality, safeguarding and their beliefs. So this is something that should be brought up in any discussion with schools.

I think the wording is that it's not automatically a safeguarding concern - this does leave the door open to it could be a safeguarding concern in certain circumstances. Circumstances such as a prominent paediatrician and her team undertaking a rigorous review of the evidence and deciding that social transitioning is not a neutral act and may set children on a path to medical intervention? Circumstances such as that same review uncovering that the normal standards of evidence based medicine are entirely lacking for 'gender' medicine for minors and that this medical pathway is experimental, without evidence of benefit, and politically biased?

It says in Cass, but it also obvious in KCISE, that forcing a child to live a lie to validate adult beliefs is not in their best interests and could constitute emotional abuse.

So in light of recent facts coming to light, I'd suggest taking a precautionary safeguarding approach and applying the general principles in Working Together - i.e. involving parents should apply.

Taking one line out of KCSIE as the be all and end all and not reading the rest of it is very TRA style though. Don't let them do this in the meeting.

Talk about the emotional abuse of other children, about Working Together and the need to involve parents unless there is an extremely serious concern about a child's safety which would also require immediate social services involvement.

If you only look at that one line in KCSIE in isolation and also ignore Working Together, then the school is not safeguarding properly.

I am bumping this to ask any parent reading to write the briefest of emails to their head and their governors, asking them to check the schools policy is legal in respect to the legal advice above, and inline with the Cass review

A lot of schools are getting these emails this week - the more we send the better

Thanks OP.

My school have had an email, their policies are not bad but I still think raising awareness is a good thing.

Also, as KCSIE has been discussed above, this is relevant: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5057233-kcsie-2025-12-week-survey-from-dfe

Sorry Logic, only just noticed this. I am not in any way criticising the excellent advice from Karon Monaghan KC or the campaign to challenge schools about this - I'm fully behind it and really pleased to see it on here - so many desperate parents needing advice at the moment.
It's just puzzlement that the Children Act / Safeguarding legislation doesn't appear to contribute legally in protecting children as well?

Thanks for this OP.

Bumping this as this safeguarding issues shows no signs of going away according to AIBU today
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5058854-to-be-shocked-not-to-be-told-trans-student-sharing-bedroom-on-school-trips?page=1

Anyone else had a chance to send an email?

Thanks for this. I have now spoken to the MAT that I work for.
It has been reported in Schools Week that DfE lawyers thought it left the schools open to legal challenge and the MAT are going to wait for the full guidance.
Emails from parents would be helpful to make sure it doesn't sink under all the other stuff.

@SaltPorridge do you have a link to that schools week article? I'm meeting with our headmaster today on this.

Really useful - thanks

probably https://schoolsweek.co.uk/trans-guidance-dfe-lawyers-said-schools-face-high-risk-of-being-sued/

Though this is out of date given the legal advice given on this thread above and the Cass Review

We know that the lobby groups desperate to continue to have access to children in schools will challenge this - and many people fed back in the consultation that the DfE should be the ones taking on the legal challenge over this, not some individual school targeted by trans extremists.
IANAL but it seems as if the legislation covering gender reassignment doesn't specify age and those adults over keen on children of any age being taught they can change sex and consent to future infertility etc are exploiting this lack of clarity? Hence the threat of legal action

The legal threat is coming from the other direction in the article, not from GC parents

That's the one.

Thanks for this thread. I will be raising (again) with the school I teach in and dd's schoolin a couple of weeks when I've got through a crazy few weeks of workload.

I realise that. Originally this was "leaked" from legal professionals working for the DfE. Given the extent of transactivism amongst civil servants, including lawyers, my assumption was that it was a deliberate unauthorised leak in order to frighten schools. The EHRC's comments have suggested that there is a legitimate legal concern (as suggested above).
There evidently does need to be some sort of legal clarification as to the age that gender reassignment applies to children - it's a shame that the government hasn't taken this on to resolve legally.

Edited to add apologies for derailing the thread.

It’s been two weeks since this happened.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/apr/13/schools-in-england-and-wales-using-gender-toolkit-risk-being-sued-by-parents

i don’t believe Brighton Council has made a public change yet.

The government needs to get off its backside and get some decent legal opinion on this (un captured) showing that Safeguarding legislation / legislation relating to schools, specifically the Children Act and Education Act have precedence over EA 2010.

IF EA 2010 applies to children why is all the age discrimination in schools allowed?

E.g. Children expected to be in school, or some form of education. Why can't they just get jobs like everyone else? Age discrimination. Younger children expected to wear uniform while A-level students don't have to . Age discrimination!

Schools would cease to function if they couldn't discriminate on the pc of age.