Working Group - KCSIE 2026 changes - improve the guidance via the consultation process, promote more responses & more

[SingleSexSpacesInSchools]

Hello everyone - I was hoping to start a working group of some sort in order to respond to the proposed changes to KCSIE (Keeping Children Safe In Education)

Press release https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-to-publish-new-gender-guidance-for-schools

Proposed changes and response mechanism https://consult.education.gov.uk/independent-education-and-school-safeguarding-division/keeping-children-safe-in-education-2026-revisions/

I have a large personal interest in this. If you are not aware, I am the father in this article in The Times https://archive.ph/C4eXs

Can we come together to build a strategy of supporting the parts the changes which are great, for example the very clear statements of toilets and changing rooms being single sex?

And think how to propose possible changes to the statements about sport and especially about allowing social transitioning at school?

I'd very much love to hear your ideas and suggestions. I don't want to lead the group especially or tell anyone what to do - I am certain there are people with more knowledge than me, but I thought I could start off the conversation?

Will it though? Other laws and safeguards haven't stopped the adults doing this. The SC ruling is really crystal clear. Previous legislation is crystal clear. I'm not totally convinced that it being in KCSIE will stop these adults. I don't think ANYTHING will until they become personally legally accountable and / or lose their jobs.

They just redefine the word 'sex' to mean both sexes, if they want it to, just as they've already redefined 'boy' and 'girl'

Edited to add: I hope I'm wrong, but there's already the emotional abuse definition in KCSIE which should prevent the coercion of other children to pretend that boys or girls can change sex and yet hasn't in many cases done so. I really think there need to be consequences for the adults pushing this who are in positions of power.

Why do you not care if John is now to be called Susan but calling John ‘she’ would be absolutely unacceptable?

I don’t understand why one is social transition, coercion and so on but the other, with obviously gendered names is no biggie.

Because pronouns are sex-based in the English language and based on the observation of the speaker.

This is how it has always been. Requiring that the rules change for only one person, or a small group of people, whilst everyone else is treated in the original grammatical way is coercive and compelled speech.

Whereas everyone has an individual name and can choose what that is, if they wish.

Not rocket science. It's preferential treatment that required compelled speech outside of normal English language usage.

In the English language, as we learn it, we don't need to ask someone before we can use pronouns about them. We just have to see them and observe their sex. So I can say 'she did it, the one in the red dress'. I don't need to know her name. I need to ask what her name is. No-one ever (until the recent madness) asked for someone's pronouns. The main way in which it's abusive is one rule for a special few and another rule for everyone else. And the everyone else have to change their normal English language usage in a very, very difficult way to accommodate the few. Whereas names are always something you have to learn about an individual.

I find it bizarre I have to explain this.

Also obfuscating sex is always a safeguarding concern because sex matters for safeguarding.

'She's going to sleep in the tent with the kids' suggests it's a female teacher. If this is said about a male teacher (who thinks or pretends to think he's a woman) then that's lying about a very important safeguarding fact. Everyone hearing that sentence ASSUMES woman because that is how these pronouns are used 99.999% of the time. Based on sex Many parents don't ever see their children's teachers at secondary. It's a way to lie to parents, essentially in this context.

It's not that much better -in safeguarding and consent terms - if you're using this sentence about a teenage boy.

And you can't reasonably lie and use wrong-sex pronouns for children and not adults.

I think the motivation for using very gendered names in adults is often fetish driven but names are and always have been individual and something everyone else has to learn about an individual (you can't observe someone's name just by looking them unlike their biological sex).

For children the adoption of another name seems a pretty reasonable way for them to assert a different identity. It's not requiring everyone else to mangle normal language and grammar rules.

You don’t think John changing their name to Susan and having everyone switching to calling them Susan would conceivably form part of ‘social transition’ (which we know is not a neutral act) for a child and instead is merely a harmless preference?

There are gender neutral names. John and Susan are not.

I don't think this is a safeguarding risk in the same way wrong-sex pronouns are, no. It's just a boy named Susan. As long as everyone is free to say it's a boy who changed his name to Susan because for some reason he wanted to, and no-one is any way confused that he's a boy, then he just has an unusual name choice. The students could go around saying 'oh there's that boy that wants to be called Susan' of course if they get it wrong and call him by his original name (that they knew him by before) they shouldn't be punished for doing so as it can be hard to remember someone has changed names.

I think a boy wanting to call himself Susan should be treated in the same way any other child wanting to change name is. Presumably anything offensive is off limits? How does the school decide?

I also think it's highly unlikely any child would change their name to 'Susan' or 'John' or anything else traditional. It's usually something more distinctive, surely?

I see, so you’re only considering the impact on the people around Susan and not of the impact on Susan of giving up their male name and adopting a female one. I’d say changing the name that everyone calls you every lesson on the register is a bigger deal than pronouns that are barely ever used when you are around.

We know social transition is not a neutral act and schools should not be facilitating this. Being casual about changing names doesn’t seem to fit with that concern.

Children do sometimes select names that are distinctly of the opposite sex.

But unlike bodies which can be observed names aren't inherently one sex or another, it's just a convention. There are plenty of names that are associated with one sex in England and another in other cultures too. On another thread recently there was discussion about this around the name Gwyn.

I just think given the massive red flag safeguarding failure that is the coercion of pupils into pretending pupils have changed sex and allowing of boys into girls toilets and changing rooms and PE sessions, forcing girls to strip off in front of boys in their changing rooms, penises in girls changing rooms, names is a lower level concern and should be secondary.

People can and do change name quite a bit - or go by a nickname. This isn't unusual.

Obviously a decent school would question WHY a child wanted to change their name. But no school that allows indecent exposure and voyeurism in the girls changing room is going to care much about that surely?

And given the actual law around toilets and changing rooms has been routinely ignored and the bit in KCSIE about emotional abuse, and the much higher risk of sexual assault in mixed sex spaces (given the very high existing known numbers of rapes and sexual assaults in schools), it seems a bit odd that this much less concerning safeguarding risk affecting far fewer numbers of pupils is suddenly so important.

The successful Scottish case with school toilets went back to rules from 1967 for separate girls and boys toilets that don’t apply in England. Thats how the Scottish case easily won. Scotland are looking at changing the 1967 rules at the moment. Also England’s DfE ‘Education Estates’ have just changed their school output specifications. This means my school toilet report, from last year, is out of date but in a good way. Both countries’ new specs seem to be clear on girls and boys toilets being separate. No more schools only having mixed sex toilets or, I believe, sinks. These single sex designs need to be worked on now to be the safest ones to prevent misuse, enhance hygiene and keep any children safe that are having a medical emergency.

For all teachers on here, they will know these changes are massive - 25% of secondary schools have got mixed sex provision that will have to be altered. Since the early 2000s schools have experimenting with mixed sex toilets. There’s been some awful incidents that could have been prevented with different, single sex, designs.

I don't think it is clear on sinks. It says the individual toilets have to be in a room lockable from the inside. It doesn't mention individual sinks having to be in that room.

Thanks @Keeptoiletssafe . I wonder how quickly certain schools will return to complying with the law and offering girls privacy and safety with single sex toilets & changing rooms? Given that so many of these changes happened "in secret" without any open consultation with girls or parents, schools that do continue to breach the law will be in receipt of unwelcome publicity. As well as negative Ofsted attention - compliance with the law is a basic expectation of schools and Ofsted are no longer in thrall to Stonewall or any of the other dubious trans lobby groups.

I wonder if a child who was assaulted in a mixed sex toilet could bring a legal action as an adult against the school / council / whoever was responsible for putting illegal mixed sex toilets in?

It's a very difficult thing to do if you're still receiving an education and at the mercy of the adults who are imposing this. But as an adult it might be easier to seek justice, though still traumatic I'm sure. It's probably only a matter of time as the sex realist wins rack up.

The old DfE design output specifications have gone but they are only ‘guidance’. Its little nuggets like this that are in the design guidance which I love:

Period Dignity - Where women and girls have access to period products, as and when they are required, to use in a private space (with toilet, hand washing facilities and hygienic waste disposal) that is safe and dignified.

There’s a few other nuggets that are new. Btw it’s quoting 1992 legislation for teachers now which is a start! I was told 1992 legislation didn’t apply to schools which I wondered why as surely it is a workplace. I would presume they also apply to toilets that were used by the public - workplaces have a duty to keep people safe (1974) legislation which schools are under. Children aren’t afforded such legislation!!

And there’s this from the version of British Standards way back when the 1992 legislation was created. (When is a room not a room? When it’s a cubicle- this makes it clear):
WC compartments should be self contained, but where a range of WCs is provided, each in a separate cubicle within a single room, e.g. in schools, offices, factories, public buildings and public conveniences, it simplifies ventilation, cleaning and, to some extent, supervision and prevention of wilful misuse, if the cubicle walls terminate above the floor as well as below the ceiling. These advantages are gained only at the expense of a certain degree of privacy. Where cubicles are used, the whole room in which they are situated may be regarded as a single unit for the purposes of ventilation.
Where partition walls and doors of WC cubicles are kept clear of the floor, the clearance should be not less than 100mm and not more than 150mm. Partitions and doors that terminate below ceiling level should be not less than 2 m in height from the floor.

It would be debatable if it were illegal and schools certainly don’t want their girls and medically vulnerable children to be unsafe (well, you would hope not). The Department of Education were signing these designs off. However they say keeping children safe ultimately is the responsibility of the school.

Full height mixed sex toilets round a central sink that lead straight onto a general circulation space were supposed to be a way of stopping trouble in toilets. This is what I expect the Brighton School has a version of that the OP is fighting. Yet if you look at what happens in reality (which is also commonsense), they are much worse for girls and can be life changing for anyone having a medical emergency. We got this crazy system in schools where they have defibrillators (if people collapse) and all toilets doors are supposed to be openable outwards (if occupants collapse and the occupant’s body prevent rescue) but there’s no way of knowing if an occupant has collapsed in the place the child rushes to when feeling ill mentally or physically.

This system which some uk schools apparently have bought into, sums up the situation. Because of privacy and being mixed sex, there’s voice activated systems with ‘stop it’ and ‘help me’ presets. If there’s one thing that can show you ‘gender neutral’ toilets don’t work for safety it is that this business is needed.
https://spaces4learning.com/whitepapers/2023/09/single-use-bathroom-security.aspx

p.s. door gaps in single sex designs are cheaper, help with cleaning and ventilation, and don’t rely on the occupant to have the ability, or want to say ‘help me’ or ‘stop it’. In fact ‘stop it’ would be less likely to get to that stage in the first place.

Here’s the link attached but I will copy it out too below:

Smart Sensor Technology Is Keeping Single-Use Bathrooms in Schools Secure

Single-use restrooms in schools are becoming prime real estate for students to vape, vandalize, and more due to the lack of monitoring and witnesses in these restrooms. The shift of schools switching to single-use or gender-neutral restrooms further complicates the security of the school restrooms. This often leads to school restrooms being used for prohibited activities, such as loitering, bullying and aggression, unpermitted vaping, and even as extreme as drug usage and sexual activity. Devices like the HALO Smart Sensor are designed to help keep all school bathrooms safe through:

• Vape and THC detection
• Aggression and vandalism detection
• Motion and occupancy detection
• Alerts for Keywords, Panic Buttons and Occupancy counts
• Keeping bathrooms secure while also protecting the privacy of individuals

Download this whitepaper to learn how your institution can foster a safer, secure, and respectful restroom environment for all.

And here is the link to uk schools using these systems:
https://schoolsweek.co.uk/schools-install-toilet-sensors-that-actively-listen-to-pupils/

And here is a link to children having seizures in schools due to spiked vapes and teachers doing successful cpr on children because the children have fortunately collapsed in a place where they have been seen. Children go to toilets to vape.
https://www.bath.ac.uk/announcements/english-school-children-unwittingly-smoking-spice-spiked-vapes-finds-university-of-bath/

I know how those teachers feel which is why the full height designs need to go.

The lack of common sense and deprioritisation of children's health and safety is staggering and depressing.

I very much hope an adult who was harmed does bring this to court as sadly it seems this is what it will take for children's safety to be prioritised.

It's bonkers they need the voice activated systems and no teenager would ever ever abuse that by shouting 'stop it' and running off... oh no... it's the world gone mad. Expensive (no doubt) technology (that may go wrong) from school budgets that can ill afford it rather than door gaps in single sex spaces so teachers and other students can use their eyes.

And it doesn't solve the problem if a student collapses so suddenly they don't have time to say 'stop it' or 'help' does it?

My Year 9s would have driven the staff mad with those voice activated alarms! In fact if you look what happens in real life, schools turn them off, particularly the vape smoke sensing ones at exam times. They cause too much disruption.

So they spend money on stuff they don't use.... lovely.

There's a push to profiteer from overly complicated 'solutions' (which rarely solve anything) for things that should be basic in education at the moment. No wonder there are problems with attendance! I do know a couple of people who home educated because they didn't feel their children were safe (with medical conditions) in schools.

One of whom was a qualified teacher, so the system lost a child due to failures such as those so well described above and also an experienced teacher.

Because I'm a teacher and it's my job.

If I am to actively socially transition a child by using, probably multiple times a lesson, a name for them which is obviously wrong-sex, a social transition which we know is more likely to put them on a pathway to irreversible medical changes, I'd quite like to be able to query that without being told that it's not important.

Whilst I understand the argument to allow other names, their birth name is a legal name. When we record incidents on Cpoms it becomes a legal record which could be read out in court if needed.

Due to historic abuse cases, schools have a legal duty to hold records for a number of years.

It is potentially a document safeguarding problem to change a name as it is an obstufication of fact.

I find that bonkers and wonder how many architects have just followed the rules as standard till more recently- I have a relative who is an architect who when quizzed seemed to know these in relation to school building design; specifically sinks.

People claim that ‘people change their names all the time’ but while it’s quite common for children to use a recognised shortening of their legal name as their preferred name, it is actually really uncommon for a child to change their first name to something completely different. The only examples I can think of in the last decade or so have been children from China/Hong Kong who choose an English name, and trans kids.

Have you been asked to do that?

I personally think that without the enforced pronouns it's highly unlikely we'd see children demanding name changes. It's all about forcing others to pretend they're the opposite sex, name change alone doesn't do that.

I suspect without the pronouns coercion the rest will fall away.