Teachers: has anyone mentioned the Cass Review in your school ?

[TheCatIsInCharge]

And will it have any impact on how your school goes about explaining the concept of transgender to children?

I met with our head yesterday on this. He didn't really understand what relevance the Cass Review had to our school (primary, no social transition policy). I think he just thought it was an NHS thing about clinical treatment, without really thinking through the role of schools in making kids think that they could transition, and then potentially facilitating social transition and setting them on the "school to clinic" pathway.

What IS going to move the needle, at least at our school, is the draft schools guidance that was published in December and consultation closed in March, which says that gender ideology is highly contested. That will impact the PSHE curriculum as they won't be able to continue to teach the current one-sided picture of gender ideology (that gender identity is real and everyone has one, that you should affirm pronouns and new gender identity or it's bullying, that a trans child is a real thing etc).

Unfortunately, he pointed out that the guidance is only draft and they won't do anything until the final guidance is published. What they will do in the meantime is consult parents to gather views and values to see if they need to revise their policy and curriculum content, which is a great result.

If anyone has any insight into when to expect the final schools guidance to be published, that would be really helpful! I'm hoping it's this term so the school can consult parents, digest the new guidance, and then revise their policies and PSHE/RSE curriculum this summer.

Yes. I raised it with the head of PHSE.

We've never secretly transitioned any children. We have allowed social transition for a handful of children, at parental insistence. We have one parent who has complained about staff calling their female child "they" rather than the "he" they want.

Didn't go into details, but just pointed out that post Cass, we have more push back now.

My school has been in a similar position.

Does this apply to Wales?

I work in a school. About 18 months ago I was reported for transphobic tweets. I went along to the investigation interview armed with Forstater!! Not only that, though, our LA had issued new transgender guideance only two months before, and there must be a TERF somewhere because it thanked Sex matters, transgender trend and the safe school alliance in the acknowledgments!!

I pointed out that everything I said in my twitter feed aligned with our guidance - which had been emailed out to all the staff - and I certainly had the right to say it due to Forstater.

The interview was with our safeguarding lead, and I was amazed to realise that he did not really know much about it!! He then asked me to email him a list of MY concerns, which I did - posters of Elliott Paige as a role model were removed immediately. A few other bits and pieces around the school but that's about it.

But I did have a meeting with the KS3 PSHE coordinator, and got one of our resources changed. She, also, was bemused because they just buy in resources from external suppliers and assumed it was all compliant.

Anyway, apparently as soon as the new guidelines come out our safeguarding lead will be leading some training for all the staff.

That's terrific rabbitwoman.

Thanks rabbitwoman for this:
"She, also, was bemused because they just buy in resources from external suppliers and assumed it was all compliant".

As ever, it's the outsourcing that's the issue. Transactivists have been allowed to write resources for schools or to influence the organisations that provide them with busy teachers just assuming that they're OK. Hopefully the PSHE association, Brook, the FPA, the Sex Education Forum etc have paid close attention to Cass & the draft guidelines? These should be the trusted organisations for schools as opposed to anything produce by the grim Proud Trust, the School of Sexuality etc.

It's promising if schools are doing it out of ignorance and just need reminding. So well done all of you for giving them a nudge. We need more parents and staff all over to do this.

It seems odd to me that they get material from these places anyway and not from an official supplier. Maybe time to check what maths and physics they are teaching in case they got that from Facebook.

Reading this thread; yes that's absolutely the line that is significant in all schools and leapt out at me.

“Assume is compliant”

Awesome work Rabbitwoman!

Assuming is NOT part of safeguarding

I'm head of a Primary school within a successful MAT in the midlands. Immediately after the Cass Review was published, our CEO sent an email asking us to seriously reflect on the findings and how we support gender-questioning students. A few weeks ago one of our secondaries had a group of students who decided they were "furries." Leather masks, tails, shit on the floor, the lot. Would not have believed it but several of my staff had seen the unfortunate video evidence. I was amazed it didn't end up on X or similar but it caused quite an amusing scandal in our small village! They were dealt with extremely firmly.
As a GC feminist, it gives me real satisfaction that I'm part of an organisation that seems to recognise sense.

It’s important that we read the entirety of the Cass report though. It does say that intervention will be appropriate for some children, and she goes really far out of her way to emphasise that this issue is made difficult by both sides rigidity.

my school has never had a policy where we exclude parents, we have always included parents at the earliest stage. I believe many of our pupils will work through their dysphoria over time. That doesn’t mean we can discount those small number of pupils who will go on to live as transgender adults.

schools are not counsellors, or doctors, or parents. Surely our role is to facilitate the union/joined up care of all these people? Without political input, or prejudice?

I agree that is is important to note that schools and parents are not counsellors, or medical practitioners, and also important to note that it has been much discussed that social transition is not a neutral act that is easily undone if needed.
It makes it hard for a child to row back if they want to, having insisted everyone around them calls them by new name/pronouns.
It can concretise an idea that would not have persisted otherwise.
It is confusing for very young children to be told they can choose their sex, be accepted through primary school, and then find that puberty gives the lie to that assertion.
It shouldn’t be undertaken by schools even at the behest of parents if there is no clinical involvement.
I agree that schools should be supporting all medical and psychological care plans for children, but should not be embarking on psycho-social interventions without medical input.

my school has never had a policy where we exclude parents, we have always included parents at the earliest stage.

That's great but it's not the case everywhere. Our school's policy had a line - lifted straight out of KCSIE, which was in turn inserted at the behest of Stonewall (the CEO boasted about it on twitter) - that stated that a child stating that they were trans wasn't in itself a safeguarding issue, you can affirm, no need to report to anyone, no need to involve parents. Some schools interpreted this as a duty to socially transition at school. Ours interpreted it as a duty to only inform parents if it would "increase the happiness or well being of the child". This seems to turn safeguarding and working together on its head, which is that you always do tell parents unless such a disclosure would put the child at risk.

Yes Cass says that for some children social transition will be the right decision, but she also says that should be a clinical decision, should be vanishingly rare, and basically should never happen at primary level at all. This means that the policy not to inform parents cannot stand, as how can you find out if there has been a clinical decision unless you contact them.

I think a lot of schools forget that they are not counsellors, doctors or parents because they are - unfairly, IMO - expected to be all these things so regularly these days, without the appropriate expertise. Add in teachers who feel they should be activists or "providing a safe space/rainbow family" for students with parents who are perceived to be unsupportive, abusive, right wing or religious and the issues really start stacking up.

It's astounding how ignorant our headteacher seems to be on this.
He has a gay bestie apparently who complains that all the middle aged mums are being homophobic when they show concern for how the school handles trans issues. He really thinks he's fighting the good fight. Twat.

Let's see what the next year brings. I expect that there will be a lot of ferrets.