"Teachers to tell children Gender Ideology is a contested belief"

[WarriorN]

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/05/14/teachers-pupils-gender-ideology-trans-guidance/

Teachers will have to make clear that gender ideology is a “contested belief” rather than fact if they bring it up in lessons, Gillian Keegan will say later this week.
The Education Secretary is set to issue guidance on Thursday following criticism that some pupils were being taught that there were 72 genders.
Schools will not be told to hold lessons on gender ideologygy, which states that people can be born the wrong sex and that they can change their identity to the opposite sex or other categories such as non-binary.*
But if they do hold lessons on the issue, they must make it clear that it is a contested belief.
In other words, they must say that the “gender-critical” beliefef that there are just two biological sexes is also valid.*
The guidance - which will be out for consultation - will also order schools to show parents all classroom material to ensure they are comfortable with what is being taught.

@GardenCherisher our school does a unit on sexual reproduction covering your first two bullet points in science in some detail in Year 7 so it would be perfect if the PSHE curriculum covered your last 3 points at the same time. That would make total sense to me as a parent, anyway!

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https://www.transgendertrend.com/no-outsiders-queering-primary-classroom/

Read this detailed investigation into and description of No Outsiders material. And previous MN threads. Those two radio guests do not represent balance, quite the opposite.

Safe Schools Alliance has useful resources and factsheets on this topic.
https://safeschoolsallianceuk.net/

@HipTightOnions are you going to start another thread about the KCSIE consultation? I think it would be really good to bring to people's attention to contribute to that.

(I'm trying to find the right section to mention para 203, haven't found it yet...)

Initially I thought they only wanted to hear from professionals but there is an option to answer as a parent.

What does "successfully and safely " even mean come to that? Have we all got the same opinions on that?

Well no, but parents have parental responsibility and teachers don't. Teachers don't just get to decide what 'successfully and safely' means with no consultation with parents.

It's one thing to teach scientific facts - I agree with that. It's another to assume all children are ready to make decisions about contraception with no parental input.

"Working Together" is very clear that parents should be involved in safeguarding related discussions / safeguarding - related information. Contraception is definitely that.

Picking up this point belatedly.
I've been a safeguarding and pastoral lead in schools for years as well as a teacher of sex ed so may have even have more experience in this area than your Mum

My comment in no way implied that "if you talk about contraception then young people will start to have sex" and I can't see how got there from what I said. I was pointing out that sex ed is taught in mainstream classes with a range of children with different life experiences, knowledge, social and emotional needs. This is why teaching has to be age appropriate and I challenged why men like Chalke are arguing that the experiences of an abused 11 / 12 year old child should be the target for a mainstream lesson.
It's very challenging to get this right and the reality is some some children won't be ready for certain concepts that other peers will be. That's the balance educators have to find and it's why it's been so disastrous for the "sex positive / you're a bigot if you don't embrace porn, sex work kink" brigade to have been allowed to influence what happens in schools.

I don't understand why this proposal is controversial. From what I understand all the critics are claiming this is what they're doing anyway. If that's the case then what's the problem? If that's the case.

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Today's YouGov Chat is about sex-ed (apologies if duplicate):

https://www.yougov.chat/channels/daily-chat-uk/

The amount of teachers falling all over themselves to have a pop at the government.

Head teachers revolt over ‘irresponsible’ age limits on sex education

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/c0c638c3-d100-4a4d-a573-c7dce2d6a8e3?shareToken=6d7b6b9cb03586018ad0a8e38fd057f8

So much this. 100% particularly this bit

That's the balance educators have to find and it's why it's been so disastrous for the "sex positive / you're a bigot if you don't embrace porn, sex work kink" brigade to have been allowed to influence what happens in schools.

Does everyone remember the outfit that went into schools and no doubt retraumatised the abused children whilst also exposing others to inappropriate sexual content by getting children to draw dick pics they'd been sent? I'll try and find the thread on it later...

I seem to recall same outfit claimed that children could 'ask to leave' if they wanted to - thus demonstrating a TOTAL and UTTER lack of understanding of the dynamics between adults and children in schools.

They were also the genital modelling clay people from memory (though I may be mixing up my epic safeguarding failures).

What the new sex education guidelines mean for schools and parents

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/4a2b0d57-13c9-409a-a40b-104d7a0499b2?shareToken=5d0ffe99efc0823a85f70c8d4266466f

https://schoolofsexed.org/

These people? Haven't gone away.

It's going to be statutory????!!!!?!!

If that is the case, I think I'm going to cry.

Quote from the Times article above...

"The guidance will introduce an explicit ban on the proactive teaching of gender identity. It will say that the idea that children can change their gender by using different names, pronouns and wearing the uniform of the opposite sex is highly contested. If pressed by pupils, they should instead focus on the facts of biological sex.

Teaching children about gender identity could lead to them questioning their own gender when they may not have done otherwise, the guidance will suggest. Children can be taught the law about gender reassignment — that people can legally change their gender from the age of 18 — but children will be told that that they cannot legally be classified as members of the opposite sex."

The School of Sexuality, weren't they the bunch behind the Family Sex Show?

I've just noticed it's going to be statutory.

i was a secondary teacher a decade ago. I taught drama.

schools were rubbish about sex Ed. There were no teachers who were specifically qualified to teach the subject - it was foisted onto form tutors as part of PSHE. As nobody had any idea of how to teach the subject well we were provided with resources from an outside company (I have no idea who they were or what else they did).
I don’t remember having any problems reaching the stuff - it was mostly mundane and unexciting - but recall feeling that this was a serious subject that should be treated seriously, not something that was foisted onto often reluctant or unenthusiastic teachers without much preparation time.

If schools are expected to teach sex Ed then it should be taken seriously, treated as a subject itself with specialist, subject trained teachers, not as an add-on given to whoever is available. It should have proper, quality resources available for parents to view.

… “. It should have proper, quality resources available for parents to view.”

can anyone remember that clearly dodgy company who would not let anyone see what they were teaching? They had a ridiculous reason, something like ‘they were worried other people would copy their work’.

Funny how no other resource provider felt the same. Can you imagine a publisher of maths books saying that teachers and parents couldn’t view their books in case they copied them?

Yep exactly. Funny that it's the type of lessons that paedophiles might want to manipulate that can't be shared with parents, isn't it?

I do have to say that my DD's secondary shares every single PHSE resource with parents and it's all very sensible.

To not share such material with parents is a safeguarding failure - children will come home potentially confused and it's very hard to clear up that confusion if you don't know what they've been taught.

Not sharing is not in the best interests of the children, it can only ever be highly suspect and in the interests of the adults who don't want it shared.

I'd forgotten quite how awful they are 'sex-positive' and 'non-binary' according to their page and also 'trauma informed' - what about kids that find making play doh genitals traumatic, or is that not the right kind of trauma? They have what I horribly suspect are play doh genitals on their front page? I'm telling myself they're not very good leaves....

I mean even if it wasn't a massive great safeguarding red flag.... what child wants to make models of GENITALS in front of their CLASSMATES? Massive cringe. What about children who find it traumatic to do anything that horribly embarrassing? And the potential for horrendous ribbing outside the classroom (J's playdoh penis looked like a (insert ludicrious item)!! hahahahaha)

They also say their approach to RSE is 'decolonising: We aim to recognise and address the impact of colonisation.'

What the Actual Fuck? What's colonisation got to do with RSE? Or children?

The one thing their approach to RSE is missing is 'reality based'.

They do not understand children at all. How ON EARTH do people this unhinged get involved in schools?

Yes some aerated interviewer this morning probably R4 on the ban

If it’s not happening what’s the issue?

They recently did a workshop on consent at the school I work at. No playdoh. Something about "unconscious people don't want tea" seemed to be the most memorable takeaway.

But it's important to say that a lot of sex ed is within the science curriculum. There's a whole reproduction topic, and HIV appears as part of disease topic.

For some reason, it's regarded as less ick when it's within science, although I had a group of girls cheer when i walked in instead of their usual male teacher, and they took the opportunity to ask questions they wouldn't have asked him.

Just skim-read the article, it all seems sensible and refreshingly fact-based. Unless I've missed something?

The consultation is open (link to pdf of draft guidance at bottom of page)

https://consult.education.gov.uk/rshe-team/review-of-the-rshe-statutory-guidance/