Safe School Alliance re DoE meeting re draft guidance for schools

[IwantToRetire]

This month SSA were invited to a meeting with the Department for Education in London to discuss their draft guidance for schools on gender questioning children and the LGBT content in the draft RSHE guidance.

The previous government’s consultation on gender questioning children closed in March 2024, and the consultation on revised relationships, sex and health education (RSHE) statutory guidance closed in July 2024. This month’s meeting was set up by the Department for Education as part of the work they are now doing to analyse the consultation responses, consider the evidence and “talk to stakeholders to understand how best to ensure children’s wellbeing so they will thrive at school.”

Our spokeswoman Tracy Shaw attended a 90-minute roundtable with representatives from other organisations. Each contributor was given a limited time to make their points individually. However we have been assured that the key outputs from this meeting will be summarised and shared with ministers.

Text of Tracy Shaw’s submission on behalf of Safe Schools Alliance:
at https://safeschoolsallianceuk.net/2024/12/17/department-for-education-meeting/

I'm going through the preparatory stuff for one now.

That's horrific @Steve3742.

I assume this happened before the Cass review was published? Do you know if you can use the evidence in that to support your case?

You're absolutely right that colleges still educate children.

What's even more concerning for me about colleges is that many offer post 16 courses to learners with send, for things like life skills etc. further education colleges don't seem to need to employ qualified teachers either.

Whilst many secondary schools n are clearly also useless on this, anecdotally within my local area, the colleges running courses for these vulnerable teen and young adults are also the most ideologically driven around gender identity etc.

Good luck @Steve3742 - what a horrific situation to find yourself in. Well done for showing integrity.

@WarriorN, this happened in November to December last year. So after the Cass Review. And after the KCSiE Statutory Guidance was modified to account for the Cass Review.

I should be open and point out that, whereas they did try to discipline me for holding views that were opposed to the college's EDI values, they dropped that when it became obvious it had no legs. They instead fired me for disclosing "sensitive information" to the student's mother. Because, when it became obvious they weren't going to do anything in response to my Safeguarding referral, I informed the student's mother of what they were doing myself. As I pointed out to them, it could hardly be considered confidential information as it was known by a dozen or so staff members and twice that number of students. Everyone bar the student's mother, in fact. But this made no odds, they still fired me.

Bloody hell. That's an astonishing thing to do, especially as it sounds like, as the mother didn't know, that she perhaps wasn't fully on board.

That illustrates what I have seen; that those passing on key kcsie safeguarding changes to staff don't elaborate on details such as Cass, let alone read it.

I honestly think that some school (college) staff boldly assume that Labour will completely drop the gender questioning guidance. It may well not end up being as great as many of us hope but with Cass (which also has some problem areas) there has to be something there for schools to follow that is in line with how the nhs will be running gids from now on. Which is not the affirmation model.

Steve3742 · Today 16:25

I'm going through the preparatory stuff for one now.

Having read your next posts too: I hope you take them to the cleaners. They absolutely must know that they are utterly in the wrong, from a legal standpoint.

Was the mother surprised? Was she pleased that you told her?

Let us know if any gardening is required, as things progress.

Thanks for sharing this. Brilliant work from SSA. The conflating 'inclusion and safeguarding' is exactly what happens at the FE college where I work. I wrote a (well-informed) contribution to the draft consultation on gender-questioning children,' our safeguarding lead liked it and was going to send it from our institution, then the EDI team got involved and she sent their (terrible) response instead. I just sent mine as an individual. I don't know why she capitulated to them but I've noticed that to get a senior leadership role in FE, you have to be on board with all that crap.

@Steve3742 Sorry you were fired and hope you've got a new job. Just to add that many FE colleges also have vulnerable 14-16 year old school refusers etc, who are so vulnerable to being indoctrinated into trans. Also many learners with EHCPs. I've raised the issue and avoided getting fired but have had lots of hostility over the years. Safeguarding training is now just an online video and quiz. No discussion as that is where questions are asked.

@Keeptoiletssafe - thank you. My college has built some single occupancy toilets and I have the same thoughts. Epilepsy/ collapse is a massive risk in the toilets but as per usual, this is overrode at the alter of 'inclusion.' You've inspired me to raise it with senior management this week.

Agreed. Sadly it seems that some parents are going to have to take a school / college to court for breaching their safeguarding responsibilities and undermining parental rights by uncritically following the demands of Stonewall and the other trans lobby groups.

The unions are captured and until recently, transactivists were running amok in the DfE. Too many teachers feel empowered to disregard safeguarding guidance and to overreach their professional competence by socially transitioning children. Then they signpost these vulnerable adolescents to some of the most dangerous to children organisations - often in secret from their parents.

Adding that all credit is due to the numerous schools who have held the line and not allowed transgender ideology to be promoted in their school. We desperately need these senior leaders to speak out. Especially as it's evident that the Labour government have little interest in safeguarding children from believing that their bodies can be wrong but can be fixed with a sex change.

Everyone bar the student's mother

This is truely shocking and it must have been quite something for you to be concerned enough for her rights.

How can it be legal for schools to do this.

I imagine it may happen from time to time, it is thought better not to tell parents of some aspect of what is being said and done about a child at school. I mean something extreme, ie where social workers or some one have already reach a conclusion that it is better for a child to be protected from a parent.

But this isn't such an instance.

How is it teachers go along with this. Is it that they are scared to step out of line, but are they too captured.

@SinnerBoy, I'm considering gardening. Partly this is the reason for this post, I'm hoping to get people talking about it so that if it's necessary to garden, I'll have already planted some seeds. But also I think Nottingham college's actions should be made public. They have no written policy on trans children, just a bunch of vague platitudes in their EDI policy that could mean anything or nothing in this respect. This leaves it up to individual members of staff to make up policy on the fly, according to their own biases and prejudices. As long as the Safeguarding team - which seems to share those biases and prejudices - doesn't intervene, they get away with it.

At my disciplinary hearings, they constantly evaded these points and refused to either accept or deny that they'd committed a Safeguarding breach. Instead, they concentrated on my actions, as though they'd happened in a vacuum. One reason I want to take them to a tribunal is that they won't be able to do that there. They'll have to either defend their actions (and I can't see how) or admit they acted illegally and in breach of Safeguarding. Which may force them to actually write a policy down.

@MrsOvertonsWindow I made a Whistleblowing Disclosure about them to the Children's Commissioner, who more or less agreed with me and forced the principal to admit that a lot of the points they were trying to use against me were a breach of Safeguarding and against (written) college policy. But they still fired me. It's been forwarded to OFSTED, but I've not heard back from them yet.

@IwantToRetire I don't believe it is legal. It's certainly a breach of the Statutory KCSiE Guidance and the DfE Guidance on Gender-Questioning Children. But Nottingham College has decided to ignore it, so it seems.

Colleges are allowed to withhold information from parents if they consider that disclosing it may put the child at risk of harm. But if they believe a child is at risk of harm from their parents, they're also under a legal duty to make relevant agencies - Social Services, the Police, etc. - aware of this. They didn't. Because they didn't really believe the child was at risk of harm from her parents.

@Steve3742 I'm sorry you were fired for doing the right thing.

My son told us he was thinking about his gender identity a few years ago. We don't fully know what that meant to him but he disclosed that one of the college canteen staff had called him 'madam' and it had made him feel happy.

I knew very little about gender ideology at the time. Thankfully my first instinct was to ask if he was really comfortable with staff lying to him as it was clear he didn't look anything other than the boy he was and they were only doing this because they'd been told it was the right thing to do. This caused an initial outburst but he's the sort of kid who does go away and think about things. If we hadn't found out about it, he could be living his life chasing each step along the way to destroying his body in the hope it makes him happy, instead of focusing on his future career.

I'm not surprised, unfortunately, Steve, to read that and I know for sure that many other posters are not, too. It seems par for the course that schools just ignore legal precedents and carry on regardless, with no hope of winning, drunk on their sense of righteousness, blundering through China shop of people's lives.

Not just schools, but businesses and Government departments. Everyone here wishes you and your pupils the best.

Just caught up on this thread.

Wow, @Steve3742 What an awful experience.

As a parent of a 15 year old autistic girl who remains vulnerable to her autism-related puberty distress being conflated with gender identity, thank you for stepping forward to support and safeguard a child who is caught up in this international scandal. So many children and young people are being let down by the education and healthcare institutions that should be supporting them.

Good luck prepping for a tribunal.

It will be interesting to see if Ofsted feels it needs to step in regarding how the school is handling the safeguarding of this child. Para 208 makes it clear that schools and colleges need to work with parents. Unfortunately it's a "should" though, rather than a "must", so it may not be unlawful to withhold this information from parents (??). However, parents have parental responsibility until the age of 18 and a school/college choosing to withhold this information means that the parents are compromised when supporting their child. If it is clear that there is no good reason to withhold the information from the parents, presumably the college is at least in a grey area legally, if the parents were to instigate legal action regarding the impact that the college's action has had on their ability to keep their child safe.

@Steve3742 I'm sending you a PM if that's ok

@NeedToKnow101 happy to send you the DfE responses.

Also, this shows the reality on KCSiE when you KCPiT instead: www.walesonline.co.uk/news/education/drug-dealing-drinking-dirt-problems-28517175

So sorry to hear this happened to you Steve. We need more teachers like you but it's unlikely to happen when people get fired for following the law on safeguarding.

I hope there end up being actual consequences for those who bullied you and fired you because you exposed Safeguarding failures. They clearly fired you illegally if it was because you shared information (that should have already been shared under Working Together) with a parent.

This is unfortunately what we're up against in terms of keeping children safe in this country - activist teachers get away with it, teachers who follow safeguarding law get fired. It's madness, and then they wonder why so many parents are homeschooling!

@Steve3742 I am trying to DM you but my DMs are just freezing. Could you DM me? @Keeptoiletssafe I am also trying to DM you so could you also drop me a note? Thanks

@2fallsfromSSA I've just PMed you. Hopefully, you'll be able to reply.

@2fallsfromSSA pm’ed.