@S1894PCohen - I would definitely complain. A teacher should not be initiating conversations with children about “identity,” still less suggesting to a child who is comfortable in her sex that she might be something else. That is not safeguarding, it’s grooming behaviour dressed up as kindness.
The Department for Education has been clear that schools may teach about gender identity, but must not present it as fact or encourage children to question their own sex. The Cass Review was explicit that reinforcing gender stereotypes risks harming children, especially girls who don’t conform to them.
If it were my child, I would send a formal safeguarding complaint to the Headteacher and the Designated Safeguarding Lead, asking:
- Why a teacher was asking a child private questions about her “identity”;
- What training this teacher has received and whether it is compliant with DfE and EHRC guidance;
- What steps the school is taking to ensure staff do not promote contested ideology to children;
- How they will ensure my child is not singled out again in this way.
Keep it polite but firm. Schools have a safeguarding duty, and the teacher’s actions here fall far outside what’s appropriate.
Something like....
Subject: Safeguarding concern, inappropriate questioning of my daughter
Dear (heads name, safeguarding head name)
I am writing to raise a formal safeguarding concern about an incident this week involving teacher X
My daughter, X, was mistaken for a boy in class. After clarifying that she is a girl, she was taken aside at the end of the lesson and asked by the teacher “how she identifies” and whether she had “ever identified as anything other than a girl.”
This is wholly inappropriate for several reasons:
• It is not the role of a teacher to raise such questions with a child.
• The Department for Education and the Cass Review have both been clear that gender identity is a contested belief, and must not be promoted in schools or presented as fact.
• Singling out a child in this way risks confusion, distress, and amounts to reinforcing gender stereotypes, which the Equality Act (2010) specifically prohibits.
• This is a safeguarding issue. No member of staff should be probing a child about their “identity” in private or encouraging them to question whether they are male or female.
I ask that the school urgently confirm:
1. What action will be taken to ensure this does not happen again.
2. What training staff have received on the teaching of sex and gender, and whether it complies with statutory guidance and the Cass Review.
3. What steps the school will take to protect my daughter from being singled out in this way again.
Please treat this as a formal safeguarding matter and respond in writing.
Yours sincerely,
Drop them an email and see what happens. That teacher has done it to other children......