All girls' school - safeguarding and boys issue

[wejammin]

My daughter has just started year 7 at a girls academy school. It appears (although this is only what she has told me and what I have seen for myself) that there are at least 2 boys attending who identify as girls. When I say I have seen it - one of the boys is visibly male.

The school's equality policy says "the school may exercise discretion in allowing admission of both male and female transgender students and supporting transgender students at any stage of their education at the school." I admit I hadn't read this until this week.

Given it's a girls school, I'm worried about safeguarding re sports, changing rooms, toilets and residential trips. I have an older teen boy - I know how big, and strong, they get, and how hormones kick in. I presume there are no boys toilets or changing rooms, but I don't know for sure. There are definitely no boys sports clubs.

Does anyone know the best way to approach this with school so that it is taken seriously? I mean no ill-will towards the male children. I just want my daughter to be safe.

But what the school is doing is not covered by that exemption. They are admitting 'transgirls', i.e. boys who identify as female. In doing so they are discriminating against all boys who do not so identify and who would not get admission to the school. It's because they are admitting transgirls that they are breaking the law.

half cocked

Do you never get bored of putting your verbal dick where it's not wanted?

Apart from the hyper scrutiny of who qualifies as male or female 'enough' for the tranvestigator police, testimony to how demented the trans moral panic has become is the pathological obsession of perceiving the world only via conspiritorial coloured glasses. IE the flimsiest association is evidence of 'perversion'.

I'm referring to your repeated attempts to derail threads and I used a double entendre that I spotted in your post to make a pun about it. I wasn't accusing you of perversion. Why did you jump to the conclusion that I was?

I doubt OP is that encouraged by your bro reference
thank goodness

If it is a “girls school” then it must be single sex. No boys are allowed, however they identify. The word “girl” means biological female or juvenile human female. They are legally discriminating against boys for a legitimate aim. This is all supported by the Supreme Court clarification. Yes there are Schedule 11 exceptions but these must be extraordinary or temporary in nature eg to allow some boys from a nearby school who wish to take Latin, to join the year 9 Latin class once a week. Or to allow short-lived admission to two boys who are children of much-needed new staff. This does not apply here. Allowing trans identifying boys admission to a girls school as a matter of course is wholly unlawful.

Darn it, I was “bro’d” by that poster on a different thread (Howse had got themselves into a pickle by correctly sexing a TW sex offender) and I thought it meant I was special.. but no, bro’s are being handed out willy-nilly it seems.

@wejammin I hope you get a promotion response from the school. The Brighton threads have some letters that you may find useful to adapt.

A bigger girl is no where like the danger to another girl as a boy loaded with testosterone.

Why are you downplaying the physical differences between males and females?

Parklife.

do NOT assume anything.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5404868-single-sex-changing-spaces-in-a-brighton-secondary-school-new-school-year-new-thread

it’s very likely the males have full access to everything….

Honestly I would send something like this:

To: Headteacher; Designated Safeguarding Lead; Clerk to the Governors; Chair of Governors
Subject: Safeguarding, Equality and Admission of Pupils

Dear [Headteacher’s Name],

I am writing as a parent of a pupil at [School Name]. My concern relates to the admission of pupils of the opposite biological sex to a single-sex girls’ school and the safeguarding implications this creates. I am sure you will appreciate the need for clarity and transparency on this issue, so that parents can be confident their daughters are both safe and treated with dignity.

I wish to be clear: I mean no ill-will towards any individual pupil. My concern is about the school’s legal duties under the Equality Act 2010, Keeping Children Safe in Education 2024 (KCSIE), the Education Act 1996/2002, and the recent Supreme Court judgment confirming that the protected characteristic of “sex” in the Equality Act refers to biological sex.

To understand how the school is fulfilling these duties, please could you confirm the following:

1 Admission of male pupils
Has the school admitted any pupils who are biologically male? If so, how many and in which year groups?

2 Impact assessments
Please provide copies of any equality impact assessments, safeguarding assessments, or risk assessments carried out prior to and/or after the admission of biologically male pupils.

3 Information to pupils
How have female pupils and their parents been informed, so that girls can make safe and dignified choices (for example around changing, toilets, and residential trips)?

4 Changing rooms, toilets and showers
Which changing facilities, showers and toilets do biologically male pupils use?
What arrangements are in place to ensure that the dignity, privacy and safeguarding of girls is not compromised?

5 Sports
Please explain how the school ensures fairness and safety in physical education and competitive sports, given the physiological differences between adolescent boys and girls.

6 Residential trips
What arrangements are in place to ensure single-sex sleeping accommodation is respected, as required by DfE guidance and safeguarding law?

7 Governance and oversight
Please provide the risk-register entry covering this issue (including date added, owner, and review date), and minutes of any governing body or safeguarding discussions since January 2024.

8 External advice
Please list the dates and providers of any legal or safeguarding advice obtained on this issue, and provide the non-privileged headline conclusions shared with governors.
Has the school relied on any Local Authority or third-party “toolkits”? If so, which ones, and are they still in use?

I am aware from KCSIE that safeguarding is a governing body responsibility under section 175 of the Education Act. The Nolan principles of public life also apply: openness and accountability require that headline effects on safeguarding and equality be shared with parents.

If this information is not provided, I will have no option but to seek disclosure through a Freedom of Information request.

Please confirm receipt of this letter and provide the requested information within 20 working days.

Yours sincerely,
[Parent’s Name]

I’d be quite tempted to make it an official FOI to be honest.

Such a ridiculous world that we live in hey? This should be for biological girls only. If they are trans, they should be going to a mixed sex school imo. This is another prime example of biological males impeding the safe spaces that women and girls are legally entitled to!

Be sure to also ask them on what grounds are they allowing admission or application by boys / trans identifying boys.

This is EA 2010 Schedule 11 which talks about single sex schools. How do you read 1.1.3.a? It makes provision for a school to remain single-sex in the eyes of the law if the admission of opposite sex students is ‘exceptional’, which is what PP claimed.

Excellent post !

The clause relates to pupils of the opposite sex in small numbers And undertaking certain classes or courses
ie similar to single sex schools that allow the other sex in to do A levels

We have two as Grammar schools locally. But boys and girls cross the road to the opposite sex school to do the odd A level. Many single sex schools have mixed sex sixth form but are still designated generally as single sex.
This does not relate to opposite sex pupils joining the school in year 7 to take part in that schools activities in its entirety

Mixed sex schools have separate male and female changing areas, toilets and PE lessons.

OP Another vote for 'be that parent'.

On the subject of toilets, I went to a girls' school and there was a male toilet because there were some male staff. Whether the boys are allowed to use them is another matter.

If that’s what it has been held to mean, it’s certainly not what’s written in the text. It’s an ‘or’ not an ‘and’ in the law. Either exceptional or for certain classes only.

Whats is exceptional per 3(a) about these boys which makes their admission and rejecting other boys an exception?

That is what the school have to justify

If the OP has a son and applied and is rejected and another boy is allowed in what is the metric the school is using to prevent the OP from sueing under the EA2010

Not quite right

Pupils who identify as their opposite sex can be admitted to the school that relates to their sex
So trans boys who are biologically girls can attend a ss girls school and visa versa

This also allows for continuity in education if they trans after starting at the school

Where are you getting this from? It doesn’t seem to be the bit of EA 2010 that we’re looking at.

Unless you think that ‘opposite sex’ in that bit of the act actually means same-sex-but-with-a-trans-identity. I don’t think there’s any way to read it like that, at least since the SC ruling.

What prevents other males bringing a discrimination claim under EA 2010 is that it’s a school operating a single-sex exemption. It’s therefore lawful not unlawful discrimination on the grounds of sex.

The school would have to show it is operating within the parameters allowed for single-sex schools. They’d have to show that their admission of males is exceptional.

The male bringing the claim might want to argue some sort of discrimination because an exception has been made for another male but not for him. Clearly he can’t bring that as a claim of sex discrimination. Perhaps he could try under gender reassignment (ie that he isn’t “proposing to undergo… etc.”). I don’t think that provision is symmetrical though (ie we don’t all have the PC of gender reassignment, unlike the PC of sex, which we do all have).

Why can it not be direct sex discrimination?

Boy A is not accepted because of his sex yet the school accept boys.

The school is the one who has to prove their case rhat Boy A cant meet the exception metric.

Since the SC decision the Boy A is in the same sex class as Boy B so even if Boy B has an extra PC the school still fail on the "is a boy test" and is discriminated against Boy A.

If Boy A wants to be in an all girls school what protections will the PC of GR provide to the school when choosing between Boy A and Boy B?

What metric makes Boy Bs wants/needs differ to the wants/needs of Boy A