Secondary School complaint about mixed sex changing rooms. Update, school response and request for help writing the escalated complaint to governors

[TangenitalContrivance]

Hello everyone. Some may remember I asked for help with a complaint to my daughter’s secondary school in Brighton which allows Males into female changing spaces. Including swimming, without informing either children or parents.

this is clearly a safeguarding issue, borderline illegal and must not be allowed to stand.

I’m going to have to take the whole thing through a governors complaint and even higher, which I am willing to do.

please, if you can, could you read my complaint and the schools subsequent response and give me pointers for what to say in my follow up.

feel free to use the original complaint at your own school. You will be surprised how many are doing this!

Absolutely fantastic letter @TangenitalContrivance. Agree with pp’s suggested edits, especially asking a direct question which demands a detailed explanative answer.

if they continue to defend themselves to the hilt, this evidence will be very useful for further challenges, quoting to the DfE etc.

make sure you’ve downloaded all polices from the school website that they have that may be relevant to all this before you send it.

I am working but will give this a look over the next few hours. My concerns are that secondary school kneejerk reaction across the country at the moment is to make toilets and changing rooms into lots of private rooms. It’s really difficult for me when I have UK examples of children dying in these new private toilet cubicle/room designs, and also incidents of being sexually assaulted, because I feel it’s unfair to highlight individual cases without getting permission from families. And of course these are only the cases that have been reported and I can verify.

The most concise way I have ever been able to covey the privacy/safety balance is:

Why do we have a gap under public toilet doors? For health and safety
Why do we get rid of the gap when toilets are mixed sex? For privacy
What are we getting rid of by doing that? Health and Safety

I think this is a good easy to read article that sums it up too which you could relate to individual changing rooms:
https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/education/drug-dealing-drinking-dirt-problems-28517175

I don’t know how your daughter’s changing rooms are configured but my immediate thoughts if children are in private cubicles it needs extra supervision and safeguarding input, particularly for children who are vulnerable (which sounds like it includes the boy in your case).

This is why I was so excited about SSA leaflet! First thoughts add their concise bit about safety gaps after this:
But:

• How are pupils expected to ask for this without disclosing personal trauma, sexual assault, religious conviction or disability?

And also tweak ‘This solution provides dignity and privacy to all pupils without sacrificing the legal rights or safeguarding of others.’ To this solution provides ‘privacy to a pupil without sacrificing the legal rights or safeguarding of others.’

Add the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 to your list of legislation. I believe one in 1992 may also be relevant but the 1974 is the one the DfE specifically quoted back to me.

Will check back later. Understand your need for conciseness is probably at odds with a rambling privacy/safety discussion!

I would be interested to know what factors might affect their case by case considerations. If he looked girly? If all his friends are girls? If it stops the boys bullying him? If he’s not attracted to women/girls? These are all easily refuted.

"A suitable alternative might be to allow the pupil to use private changing facilities, such as the staff changing room or another suitable space."

This to me this is unclear whether the private changing facility would be offered for the person identifying as the opposite sex or the person who requires single sex changing facility for reasons such as religion or other.

Obviously I know which it is but it might be worth making that clear.

They are.

Not wanting to derail but to mention in passing a thread a long time back by a parent whose daughter and friends initially accepted a boy they had been with since early primary, who they got on with, being permitted to change with them in the girls' space in secondary. This then meant when another boy in their year wished to do so, having decided on a social transition and with a history of behaviour and attitudes that meant the girls were deeply uncomfortable and unwilling, it was almost impossible to say no to him as the precedent had been set and it then became unworkable to say no to one boy and yes to another on the grounds of who was 'nice'.

If it's one, it's all. Case by case applied to individuals just sets up more inequality.

Absolutely this! Don’t let them avoid any section

Absolutely brilliant letter @TangenitalContrivance.

Possibly for a follow up rather than in the main letter, but IMO it's quite clear compelling the use of sex deception / wrong sex pronouns is not only anti-safeguarding but meets the definition of emotional abuse in KCSIE.

"26. Emotional abuse: the persistent emotional maltreatment of a child such as to cause severe and adverse effects on the child’s emotional development. It may involve conveying to a child that they are worthless or unloved, inadequate, or valued only insofar as they meet the needs of another person. It may include not giving the child opportunities to express their views, deliberately silencing them or ‘making fun’ of what they say or how they communicate. It may feature age or developmentally inappropriate expectations being imposed on children."

Came across this article in the telegraph which I hadn't seen before and I think this underlines why it's against ALL children's wellbeing to lie about sex. Do we think 'Bobby' still has friends? After lying to them for years? Was it really in Bobby's best interests to do this? The adults really failed on this one - persistently lying to children about material reality is abusive and as Zoe, a small girl, so perceptively realised directly contrary to everything else they'd said. 'Bobby' could have been a happy GNC boy, but no. archive.ph/tkxGM

Yes, the equality act also means that if one boy is included ALL boys must be included or it's direct discrimination against them.

Re policies, governors will have had to ratify all the schools polices.

Your letter will either demonstrate that they are TRAs or that they really didn’t understand what they were signing.

it may be that there’s a policy you can quote to them which will highlight where they’re fucking up

Hello

I don’t know what type of school it is (academy, local maintained etc) but I would make it clear by name who is directly responsible for safeguarding and risk assessments. It will make it clear in your complaint who will have to be dealing with Ofsted, DfE etc and I think it’s right and proper that whoever it is knows at this stage.

This is the direct quote I got from the DfE which you could cut right down to be applicable to your school:

In terms of health and safety in schools, all schools must adhere to the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974. The employer in a school must take reasonable steps to ensure that staff and pupils are not exposed to risks to their health and safety.

The employer is required to ensure that a risk assessment is conducted and measures put in place to minimise any known risk. Employers, school staff and others also have a duty under common law to take care of pupils in the same way that a prudent parent would.

The employer in a school will vary depending on the type of school. For community, voluntary controlled, community special, and maintained nursery schools this is the local authority. For foundation schools, foundation special schools and voluntary aided schools the employer is the governing board. For academies and free schools, the employer is the governing board or academy trust and the proprietor is the employer in independent schools.

Schools must have a health and safety policy in place which the headteacher is responsible for implementing.

Other than what I have said before, no other comments. There’s a good line in one of the Acts about preplanning for safeguarding for disabled pupils, but that’s more for if they start to bodge it by making everything private cubicles and pupils with invisible disabilities are put at risk.

Please keep us informed as to how they respond.

@TangenitalContrivance excellent work!!

Amazing work TangenitalContrivance

@TangenitalContrivance that is outstanding. Even without the SC judgement, it leaves no wriggle room. And with it? They should squirm in shame at the issues you've so succinctly laid out.

You've had loads of good feedback here, well done @TangenitalContrivance - did you see our response to your email?

Bloody hell you're good.

👏👏👏👏👏👏

If they double down and push you to the next stage, they'll only have themselves to blame. Presumably it'll be a panel hearing next with you in front of the governors. If you're as composed and clear IRL as you are in the written word, I almost feel sorry for the school**.

** Not really. They are tying themselves in a mess of their own making, while deprioritising safeguarding.

Fun fact, apropos of nothing of course..... did you know it's legal to record meetings without the permission of the attendees?

https://www.dma-law.co.uk/is-it-illegal-to-record-conversations/

It's worth googling case law on whether these recordings can be used in court. IANAL but I believe that they can in certain circumstances, should the need ever arise.

On a more practical note, IMO it would be well worth genuinely recording the meeting for your own purposes. Given their previous responses, I suspect they'll drop in some gems that might require a second listen to unpick.

make sure you’ve downloaded all polices from the school website that they have that may be relevant to all this before you send it.

Don't forget this bit, in amongst all the rest of the brilliant advice above.

I suspect there will be a lot of public bodies (schools, hospitals and more) as well as private businesses quietly adjusting their words and saying that they've "always been this clear". We only need to look at Bridget Phillipson this week... whilst it's great that she backs the clarity from the Supreme Court, intimating that it was always clear in law is quite the masterclass in gaslighting, given it was only last year that she was saying that some TW should use the ladies' loos. IIRC Gillian Keegan also tried to suggest that she had always been clear that TWANW when she was Education Secretary (no, she hadn't either.. and continued to remain unclear even after this assertion).

Just seen this from Bridget Phillipson. "My understanding at the time....."

https://x.com/GMB/status/1914582074717020529?t=ITA2qrg4mKW7qMM6LTLEtg&s=19

Well, Bridget, now that your understanding is different, let's see what you're made of....

OP, your timing on this is perfect. Even Bridget might agree. Good luck with the next stage. Do keep us posted 🤞🤞💪

Ooh lets have a quick look under the bonnet of that figleaf Bridge.

Why for example did govt not properly investigate this themselves?
Why did they operate on advice and instructions given by a political lobby - the one outside your window pissing on things, damaging property and carrying signs about killing women? (Arrested any yet?)
Why were the many, many attempts made by women to explain the issues and other side of things at best ignored and at worst punished to try and shut that woman up? Why were women's groups systematically excluded while the govt joined in with the lobby narrative about them all being bad to want rights?
Why did no one think - hang on a minute, what's happening to women is really awful, and there has to be something wrong here?
Why did the govt ignore the advice of the EHRC?
Did anyone at any point look at this oncoming car crash and think..... you know, perhaps we should plan and think about this, (or ask the local year 6 to put a plan together for us) because gosh, it's obviously not going to end well?

Don't think it's covering up much really.

I'd also dearly love to know what she'd say to the question of 'having revealed this gigantic issue with sexism against women in government - that their issues were ignored, they were silenced and excluded, that harms against them didn't really bother anyone very much, and the narrative now is all about the men and how tragic it is for them that women have rights - what do you intend to do about it'?

The response talks about how not allowing a trans student to use a changing area could be against gender reassignment legislation, therefore discriminatory, but surely a child still at school would not have a GRC , which is what I think the anti discrimination legislation refers to.

So why someone not actually in possession of a magical piece of paper takes precedence over someone whose rights through their natal sex and or religion are already legally enshrined beats me.

No, you don't need to have a GRC to avail yourself of the gender reassignment protections

Thanks for the information. Have many school children actually been through a gender reassignment process?

This is what's never been challenged in the courts. How does statutory safeguarding legislation impact on the allegation that a child (of any age?) has the pc of "gender reassignment".

There's a shedload of issues that should have been explored and clarified in relation to sex change and children. Sadly we've allowed the sex change lobby groups to colonise this aspect of childhood and remove this so vulnerable group of children from basic safeguarding. I really believe that had this been put in front of the courts, it would have been knocked on the head many years ago. Instead we're watching generations of children / young people abandon their future fertility, health and mental wellbeing at the behest of these toxic organisations.

To be protected by the Gender Reassignment characteristic you don’t have to go through a process, you just have to be proposing to. And there is no set process, but things as easy to do as changing your clothing, hairstyle, and names have been cited as actions that are a part of it. Also, an employment tribunal ruling extended coverage to non-binary people, not just those proposing to change their gender to that of the opposite sex (a lower court ruling, so not binding, but unless a higher court rules otherwise, organizations are likely to assume other courts would agree).

So I think it’s quite a lot of kids. In my DC’s 160 person year 10 they have at least 8 kids that I know of who would be covered by that.

The point is, though, that it protects those with the GR characteristic from discrimination and harassment on the basis of their GR. It doesn’t give them a right to be treated as though they were a different sex.

Just as protection on the basis of religious belief protects you from harassment and discrimination on the basis of your belief, it doesn’t give you the right to have your beliefs treated as true by everyone else.

Discriminating against a man because he wears a dress is unlawful discrimination against him as a man if a woman in the same situation is permitted to wear a dress.