Secondary School mixed sex changing rooms complaint: Update from school (again)

[TangenitalContrivences]

Hello everyone - Have just received a further update from my daughters (14) secondary school (Brighton) regarding my complaint - which is at stage 2 - go to governors complaint, and my further email to the school asking them to comply with the EHRC interim guidance.

I'll copy both responses below, redacted.

I would very, very much appreciate specific feedback to include in my responses to the school, it's been people here (and elsewhere) who have helped me put together really powerful letters that have clearly rattled the school.

However - there is still a male in the female changing spaces at this school. Therefore it is mixed sex.

(link to the last discussion if you want context https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5309038-secondary-school-complaint-about-mixed-sex-changing-rooms-update-school-response-and-request-for-help-writing-the-escalated-complaint-to-governors )

If anyone knows journalists interested in this I’ll speak to them direct.

@2fallsfromSSA may have some contacts in the media for you

We do and we are in touch with OP offline so happy to help

OP, your latest letter is terrifying, and I mean that in a supremely good way. You’ve found your calling!

Thank you.

OP you are incredible! THANK YOU for doing this!!

Cannot wait to see this in the papers. Love that you're doing it in Brighton. Straight to the heart of the Death Star!

I do and imagine they’re already onto this but will send them link to post in case they haven’t already seen it.

I would take that LADO email as them "warning" Ofsted that you are a known troublemaker who they consider to be acting in bad faith.

I understand your logic for the lengthy follow-up emails but you do risk it backfiring against you if it is perceived as hectoring-without-listening rather than good faith engagement. It also makes it more difficult for them to pick out what you are actually asking them to do in response to the one specific point they made if you respond with an eight point essay every time. That's fatiguing.

There is a balance between being able to FOI paper trails, and engaging in a way that can effect change. Being accused of harassment won't help.

@countrysidedeficit the harassment of concern is for the children attending schools who are inflicting clearly unlawful policies and causing harm? Necessary (and quite reasonable) letters in the face of this discrimination seems entirely reasonable in order to prevent continuing harm surely?

Some may frame this as "harassment" . I see it as legitimate fury that a parent's daughter is being compelled via school sanctioned intimidation and coercive control to undress in front of a boy.

Parents have for years tiptoed around this issue, not wanting to upset a school or have their child targeted. Resulting in transactivist adults in schools escalating their dangerous message that girls are not entitled to boundaries if a male wishes to observe them undressing. This school have ignored and filibustered despite the SC judgment.

They can accuse of "harrassing" all they like. The reality is black and white. Girls are being told to undress in front of males #nodebate. These educators / safeguarders are are being forced to explain this and are trying desperately not to do so.

I would take that LADO email as them "warning" Ofsted that you are a known troublemaker who they consider to be acting in bad faith.

I agree. I'm a Designated Safeguarding Lead in a big secondary. I was intrigued to see how ofsted would respond... until I read the latest LADO reply.

As poster explains above, what their letter is telling ofsted is that this is a bad faith complaint that ofsted don't need to be concerned by. And as a general rule, Ofsted will take the LADO's professional opinion on this. The way around that would be to see of you can convinced Ofsted that the LADO (and so the local authority children's services, who are also subject to ofsted) are failing in their duty. A complaint about the school to ofsted, now the LADO is backing them, will be unlikely to be considered.

The more I think about this, the more I think you're going after the wrong people. I wonder if your efforts would be better focused on LA children's services? The school are just puppets to LA policy.

Is the school part of a Trust?

You've not mentioned going to trustees.

Ooh I wonder which side a court would think is acting in bad faith given the SC ruling? 🤔

Happy to chip in to any crowdfunding to find out!

as I understand it the school head teacher and governors are responsible for all policies and safeguarding. If it were an academy it would be the trustees of the board.

The buck stops with them.

This will be a merry go round of passing the buck to the DfE and back; I think ssa have said send to Ofsted for completion of the complaints cycle. It won’t go anywhere. But a lawyers letter is what’s needed here. Hopefully SSA can support with that.

Is it worth approaching J K Rowling's fund on behalf of your daughter OP?

As this could end up in legal action given the intransigence of school and LADO, it's appropriate that the OP is showing very clearing he covered all possible bases with all of the possible cogs-in-the-safeguarding-wheel before moving on to such action.

As regards what is essentially the style of his emails, yes it may suit some people for his replies to be laid out differently, with an opening paragraph comprising 'my new response, written as a pithy summary', with the rest of the paragraphs labelled as 'appendix A: mostly reprise, but with the ramifications of my new, latest response woven in'. However, the OP's emailed correspondences serve his future legal purposes very well. The substance has gone over the LADO's head anyway.

As for funding, and publicity, I believe the OP is already receiving advice.

The persons who ultimately carry the can are the elected members - the politicians - who fill the roles of Cabinet Member for Children's Services, and the Leader of the Council.

Here they are, as published on the Council website:

Brighton & Hove City Council
Cabinet and their portfolios

• Bella Sankey - Leader of the Council and Cabinet Chair
• Jacob Taylor - Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member, Finance and City Regeneration
• Gill Williams - Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member, Housing and New Homes
• Emma Daniel - Cabinet Member, Children, Families, Youth Services and for Ending Violent against Women and Girls
• Tristram Burden - Cabinet Member, Adult Social Care, Public Health and Service Transformation
• Tim Rowkins – Cabinet Lead, Net Zero & Environmental Services
• Trevor Muten – Cabinet Member, Transport, Parking and Public Realm
• Birgit Miller - Cabinet Member, Culture, Heritage and Tourism
• Leslie Pumm – Cabinet Member, Communities, Equalities and Human Rights
• Alan Robins – Cabinet Member, Sports and Recreation

I think Cllrs Sankey and Daniel are another base worth covering (with personal letters) so that they can never say, 'we didn't know'. We may suspect that they don't care, but it's important for posterity to show that they wilfully didn't do the right thing. The Children Act and Safeguarding are there for a reason.

I can't wait to see the entire Brighton area get a massive bum smacking over this shite.

Have just DMd you @TangenitalContrivences

If it were me I'd be replying to the LADO just asking them to confirm that they think it is not a safeguarding issue that girls are currently being forced to undress in front of male children in this school repeatedly with no imminent change to this policy nor any assessment of the risks to the girls of being forced to undress in front of members of the opposite sex

Just that, in writing.

Thank you OP. This thread in particular is a gold mine for other parents about the risks their children experience every day. There are things we can do. Routes we can take. And people like you show it. So thank you so much for your integrity and vigilance, and publishing it.

This ⬆️

Your daughter doesn't need to be named in this request. That you are supporting her as a parent would hopefully be enough to meet the criteria.

I've just caught up on the thread. Well done again OP. Amazing stuff 👏👏👏

Ps I thought the advice to follow up succinctly with the LADO to validate that they don't believe girls being coerced/forced into changing in front of boys is a safeguarding issue. If your emails are being positioned as harassment (entirely possible, given the school is doubling down) it would be very useful to have their clarity on this. And if they can't give a clear answer, that's also helpful - considering how perfectly clear the law and the interim guidance are on single-sex changing rooms. If it's not a safeguarding issue, why does the law even exist? (I'm aware it exists for dignity as well but that's a secondary point - the primary reason is clearly safeguarding)

It blows my mind that the school would go to such great lengths to support the perceived rights of one male student, while disregarding the rights of the entire female student population. Perhaps this has already been asked, but what would happen if you made a police report?

Well yes, but I think that posters point was more practical - that it affects some of the avenues for the op, ie ofsteds reaction.

I can’t wait to see this playing out- as it will do- in favour of the OP.

Yes - I can see that. But we've got nowhere in pushing back on this in schools. Transactivism still has a grip on too many schools, the DfE, politicians etc. I think it's time to openly confront the LADO, Ofsted and politicians with the grim reality of what they're enabling. Being measured and polite isn't protecting girls from being coerced like this.

It's time these organisations were forced to confront what they might end up defending in court - that they sanctioned girls in schools being forced to undress alongside males.

While I understand why a calm measured approach is preferable, when senior adults responsible for safeguarding children duck and dive, moaning that it's too hard or wibble on about pathways - be they governors, social care professionals, Ofsted or whoever - then stating openly what they're doing and using FOIs to expose their thinking, is essential.

It may feel uncomfortable - but the safety and wellbeing of children is far more important.

The question that keeps going through my mind is, how widespread is this behaviour from schools across the country? Are there many others just like the OP's school?