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?

Thanks @Keeptoiletssafe, I think my problem is that I just don’t understand what that means! My school has some sinks open to the corridors and I know other schools do too and if it’s not compliant, maybe they don’t understand the rules either.

Sinks in the individual rooms is also a bloody nightmare but I think we had that discussion before. There’s no single good solution to the problem of school toilets.

Yes the situation for many schools is a nightmare (see article) and I think this is why the government is stalling (excuse the pun) because the financial cost to put it right to businesses (including schools) is not a vote winner. It’s not fair that schools are in this situation - they were following guidelines. It’s also not fair that designs weren’t properly risk assessed - it was a bit mad we have got to this situation where children have been harmed. It’s one thing being a business venue and not following building regulations but schools were being signed off using the Department of Education templates. I am interested in their solutions.
https://schoolsweek.co.uk/ehrc-guidance-causes-trans-toilet-trouble-for-schools/

I should also add that I agree toilets and behaviour in schools is problematical. There’s a lot of balancing for everyone’s needs. As I have said before, any design changes to what was the norm should have been assessed as they are such vulnerable places for safeguarding.

Schools don't need to coerce the parents into anything, the parents can just google respected UK institutions and read and follow their advice. Or even just watch TV.

They don't need to, agreed. But they are doing. Child protection (Working Together to Safeguard Children) sits under the DfE, so schools become the main authority on all of this as they are the part that every parent interacts with. Some parents, like me, also get reported to Children's Services. When you're on the receiving end of coercive, implicit instruction that the only way to be kind is to affirm a child's identity, IMO it carries far more weight than looking up information from other respected institutions. I'm guessing your school isn't doing this, which is great. But unfortunately plenty are. The example wording I gave above about "take it one step at a time" was exactly what I was told. Thankfully, by the time this was said to me (by Children's Services) I had already done plenty of research. Equally thankfully, the lady I spoke to was open to a conversation about why that advice was unhelpful, despite (as she had previously told me with pride) her having lots of experience in this area where she had helped children to take it slowly etc.

Incidentally, did you ever think that you might be doing the wrong thing, given that everything is geared up to point your kid in the trans direction? (Genuine question, no need to answer).

Thankfully I never had to face this question. But it's a great one to ask. My starting position was entirely neutral: "my daughter might end up being my son one day, but equally might not. I need to find out more about this and whether her autism and lack of emotional maturity is a factor". So I went digging everywhere. I washe wanted to look at as many different viewpoints as possible. Even at the point when I had finally agreed with CAMHS that it was safe for my daughter to access their services (I've posted my article about this experience a few times on other threads, so won't derail), I remember having an explicit question being asked: if your daughter comes out of this exploration and wants to transition, how would you feel? At that time (early 2023) I said (and genuinely meant) that as long as everything she explored had been fully neutral and the impact of her autism-related puberty distress had been accounted for, I would accept this. To some degree I still would but I would go through grief (at the loss of my daughter's future health and risk to her mental well-being) and she and I would have to navigate a relationship where she understood I would never use "he" pronouns and would never accept that she was my son. She already knows my position on pronouns (I avoid them entirely in such situations), so we'd be part of the way there. But I'm doing everything I can to make sure that this situation doesn't happen. The key to that is safeguarding. And the key to safeguarding is the KCSIE, followed by parts of its improvements (🤞🤞) being uplifted into Working Together so they they can be flowed down as appropriate into the policies of all other public institutions.

Bringing it all back round to this thread, my experience with the school (and to an extent Children's Services) is a good example, of which I imagine there are many, of why it's so important to close as many loopholes as possible. My original hypothesis was that the school wanted to do the right thing but was ignorant... however, right from the start I approached it in a way that validated this hypothesis at every stage. Over time it became more likely that this wasn't driven by ignorance, so I asked an explicit question (following KCSIE 2024 guidance going live that September) to draw this out.... And sure enough they doubled down on me from there. Anyway, here we are and it finally looks like the DfE is at least trying to sort this out. The 2026 guidance isn't perfect but it's still heading in a good direction. Even if it got published without a single word being changed, we'd be in a better place than we are now, partly because of everything else that's changing. Schools like my daughters' one are going to find themselves increasingly isolated if they don't reverse ferret at some point. To say that I'm angry at the school is an understatement, but I'm channelling that into doing something about it in a way that's bigger than them. Frankly the Head and DSL can fuck off, while they gradually recognise that their previously unchecked behaviour is being seen and isn't being tolerated. Hopefully they'll get a reckoning but I can't make that my primary motivation. My motivation is my daughter and the thousands like her (and the autistic boys) who are caught up in this shite.

What a fantastic post @BonfireLady
You're spot on about the positive changes in the new guidelines - which is why it's so important that we do respond where possible. For too long parental voices have been silenced in all this - completely disregarding the principle of partnership with parents that runs through safeguarding practice since the Children Act. All to the detriment of vulnerable children.

There is a Scottish state secondary school which produced a video all about how they support and include their "trans" children on their school website. It's distressing and occasionally disturbing to watch. There were articles in the press 3 or 4 years ago when it won a Scottish govt award but I wont identify the school or link to it because IMO the video itself is a safeguarding risk to the (very identifiable) children and families in it. (So please don't identify it here.)

From a guidance teacher "It's not our place to contact home to effectively out that person so we need to establish who knows what .. if home are aware... but that's not necessary" before changing names and pronouns at school, it's all on a child's say-so, and (from what another teacher says) if parents don't know then they remember to switch names and pronouns on parents' evening.

I check every now and again to see if that video has been taken down. Not so far. I will start to feel confident that safeguarding has won over ideology in Scottish schools when that video quietly disappears from their website.

Thank you @MrsOvertonsWindow . Without trying to sound like a sycophant, and probably failing (😬😂) it's thanks to the knowledge I've gained from posters like you (there are many others 💐) that I'm in any position whatsoever to have informed conversations. I had to learn what the word safeguarding meant - I thought I knew(ish) but prior to people like you (and you are very good at this ❤️) patiently helping to demystify it, it felt like it was everything and nothing all at once. Like it was the magical word that just needed to be said solemnly enough and everyone knew what that meant. Almost like an emperor's new clothes situation where nobody (me included for quite a while) wanted to say "hang on a minute, what does this word even mean?" I'd already received plenty of (intentionally.....?) shaming moments from the school DSL about my ignorance... and reassurances of course that this didn't matter because the school had it all sorted and were the right professionals for the job. Even at that point, little red flags were waving in my mind but I had nothing to hold onto. This weird word just didn't feel in my grasp. I think there might be a question further up this thread, or if not elsewhere on a recent thread, about this bamboozling word from another PP.

@AmaryllisNightAndDay I didn't find that video when I did a quick Google just now but I did come across a video from a Scottish primary school that fits that description, including being picked up by the national press. I won't post the link but I will say this..... Written in open letter fornat:

Dear Mr Tim Davie,

Fuck you. I'm glad you ended up shamed by that dossier into recognising your contribution towards the BBC's lack of impartial reporting. You too Deborah Turness. But how dare the pair of you get away with this utterly false narrative that your resignations were all about that Trump video splicing. Yes, that was terrible: creating a video from spliced clips as if it was one speech is definitely worthy of resignation. But there was far more in that dossier, not least some very damning information about the BBC's role in promoting the belief that we all have a gender identity and why (apparently) this is more important than biological sex.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on where you think the threshold between disinformation and misinformation sits when you performatively tell us that you "hope that as we move forward, a sensible, calm and rational public conversation can take place about the next chapter of the BBC". So, in the spirit of these words from your resignation letter, here's my sensible, calm and rational request:

'Now that the dossier has highlighted the BBC's significant role in helping vulnerable children to believe that they are trapped in the wrong body and need accommodations in school, puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and more, please remove all content from your news and programming (online, radio, TV, social media... all of it) that has contributed to this HUGE safeguarding scandal. Tomorrow, April 2nd, is your last day. So you've still got time to put this right, before you pop to the pub for some leaving drinks. What's to lose?'

After you've left and you find yourself with a bit of time on your hands, there's still more you can do. Open up the KCSIE guidance consultation, get yourself onto some useful forums (hi if you're already here 👋🙃) that can help you decode what you're looking at and put this right. You've got until April 22nd, so can fit it in amongst all those other retirement projects you'll be doing.

You also say in your resignation letter that you "will always be a passionate cheerleader for civilised society, a strong BBC and a thriving UK." Go for it! Despite my opening words, I would be genuinely delighted if you crossed over that golden bridge and added your voice to help make a difference here. I recognise how much you love and value the BBC and its place as a trusted institution. You might not believe me but I do too. This isn't the first scandal and sadly it won't be the last. What matters most is how scandals are dealt with once they're exposed. I look forward to seeing what you can achieve before those drinks tomorrow and afterwards. Cheers 🍻

BL

(Ps I'm not going to edit that post but obviously we already know it's not the last scandal. Yes, you'll probably also have to think about your own role in the latest one: figuring out why the BBC didn't act on concerns that were raised to it in May 2025 about Scott Mills. But don't get distracted. Focus. There are thousands of children being impacted around the world here. You could make a difference)

@BonfireLady It is a high school not primary, though I'm sure they're not alone. And seemed to have approval at all official levels inside and outside the school. I'll DM the links.

@BonfireLady apologies for the delay in replying to your post (end of term has been manic and I wanted to reply properly) and thank you for giving me such a thoughtful answer.

It's quite chilling that you were referred to Children's Services, presumably for your lack of cooperation. I think your experience where your daughter wasn't sure if she was a boy yet the school wanted to plough ahead is awful. Schools and staff really need clear instructions and this is why I think the current guidance being in part 2 rather than part 1 (which has to be read by all staff) isn't strong enough.

Up till now the insistence that instant affirmation is the only acceptable approach, and indeed the only moral response has been so strong that turning that ship around is going to need equally strong moral instruction in the opposite direction, not merely DfE direction. (I.e. you are potentially harming children if you affirm rather than vice versa). I don't know who this moral instruction could come from though.

The new research from Finland that came out a couple of days ago that shows that children's mental health deteriorates after transition could be helpful here https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/apa.70533 (It is far better than anything that could possibly come out of the UK gender clinics).

Re the study you posted @noblegiraffe

^4.6 Clinical Implications
Regardless of gender, adolescents suffering from GD present with excessive psychiatric morbidity. Subsequent to medical GR, psychiatric treatment needs appear to increase. It should be noted that in some individuals, medical GR appears to be linked to deterioration in mental health. Possible mechanisms and vulnerable subgroups should be explored in future studies. The effects of medical GR and the expectations of the patient must be addressed before commencing the treatment. The considerable severe psychiatric morbidity prior to contacting the GIS, and its increase over time, suggest that for some of these adolescents, GD may be secondary to other mental health challenges. This underscores the need to thoroughly assess and appropriately treat mental disorders among those seeking GR before and after undergoing irreversible medical treatments. Psychiatric needs must be adequately met.^

This conclusion from the study you posted makes it seem essential that all teachers are instructed in the need not to affirm given that a child presenting with gender problems is highly likely to have complex psychological needs that need to be met, not affirmation which will not automatically help.

No problem at all re the delay.

It's quite chilling that you were referred to Children's Services, presumably for your lack of cooperation.

Definitely very chilling. I guess it could be summarised as being for that reason, if you mean not falling in with what appears to be quite an eyebrow-raising agenda.

I think your experience where your daughter wasn't sure if she was a boy yet the school wanted to plough ahead is awful.

Their "ploughing ahead" was at a whole-school level. My voice was (and remains) inconvenient here. Thankfully, I've been able to stay ahead of it having too much of an impact on my daughter. Mostly by having a few staff members take the time to think critically, even if they aren't still joining all the dots. See point g below.

turning that ship around is going to need equally strong moral instruction in the opposite direction, not merely DfE direction. (I.e. you are potentially harming children if you affirm rather than vice versa).

This ⬆️

I don't know who this moral instruction could come from though.

It needs to be in the KCSIE guidance, Working Together and NHS guidance. It needs to state clearly that even with parental support to transition, a child is at risk from becoming locked in to a feeling that they need to alter their body to match a belief (in gender identity) that they may not hold for life. Yes, the Finnish study is great but it won't be recognised by UK health or education bodies any time soon. The Cass Report talks about the dangers of social transition. The interim report (in 2022) made it very clear that this needed to be understood in schools. The final report (in 2024) was less clear on this and this lack of clarity has impacted the KCSIE 2024, 2025 and the proposed 2026 guidance.

Schools that want to find the loopholes in this draft guidance will do so. I think it comes down to:

• at least two out of three key positions being held by people with nefarious motivations: head, DSL, head of governors. The 3rd person can be easily manipulated in this scenario, including tapping in to their own ego
• the top-down culture that this will create e.g.

a) poor staff training on KCSIE. Part 2 could be selectively ignored or downplayed
b) poor governance on curriculum content, such as gender identity being folded into lessons. The latest one at my daughters' school was the class being taught how to say "I identify as a boy/girl" in Spanish. There have been more examples in other subjects
c) activism running unchecked e.g. LGBTQ+ posters etc, assemblies, library book selection
d) Be Kind encouragement everywhere, including preferred pronouns in staff emails to children
e) coercion that stops children understanding what biological sex means and why it can be important to know this.. "it's important to use someone's preferred pronouns as a sign of respect"
f) boundary violations e.g. male staff entering girls' spaces (changing rooms, toilets, residential accommodation) because everyone has been taught that they are women
g) staff feeling too afraid and/or confused to call any of this out

And lastly, but probably most importantly, teachers having private, social grooming conversations with children where children then request social transition and everyone is expected to go along with it. I think this is where I proved to be a problem because I got there first, before any of the dangerous staff members had had a chance to have too many words in my daughter's ear. I suspect that at least one had been doing for a while (particularly when my daughter was in the school LGBT club) but thankfully she hadn't got any further than thinking she might not be a girl by the time she brought the conversation to her dad and me.

From your experience as a teacher, do you see a top-down leadership culture (in at least 2 out of the head, DSL and head of governors) that fully understands this issue and how it can be mitigated at a whole-school level? If so, I imagine the KCSIE guidance will work in your school. If not, I would be very wary of what these gaps can lead to.

This is a brilliant post. It shows so clearly why a woolly and vague KCSIE isn't fit for purpose.

But arguably the law that already exists should have stopped a lot of what is described here and didn't. I think the main thing that will turn this around is people losing their jobs over safeguarding failures (such as forcing girls to strip in front of boys in order to prop up an unscientific and illogical adult ideology).

There are enough schools - such as my DD's - where there is proper safeguarding and single sex spaces and the SLT did a good job of putting the children first. Not all adults in education have failed in their duties here and / or been gullible enough to truly believe the Emperor isn't naked despite the evidence of their own eyes. Those who did fail would likely do so again for the next nefarious agenda to remove safeguards from children and really need to go.

@BonfireLady is absolutely right that there are key positions in every school who will be driving genderism in those schools not following the law / safeguarding. A DSL, for example, does need to be held to an appropriate professional standard and this has not yet happened. Hopefully soon.

Thank you @womendeserveequalhumanrights I truly hope that there are more schools like yours than the one my daughters go to, if your SLT has got a grip on this.

I think the main thing that will turn this around is people losing their jobs over safeguarding failures (such as forcing girls to strip in front of boys in order to prop up an unscientific and illogical adult ideology).

Agreed.

A DSL, for example, does need to be held to an appropriate professional standard and this has not yet happened. Hopefully soon.

Agreed.

In the meantime, it's really important to shore up as many loopholes in the next release of KCSIE as possible. Unfortunately there will be slippery DSLs (and others in the two key 'triology' roles I mentioned above) who know how to weave their way through the existing laws and aren't being held to account by the DfE, Ofsted or local MPs. Safeguarding at a whole-school level seems to slip into an accountability black hole, with every person and organisation in the chain able to point to it sitting with someone else. The OP's previous threads demonstrated this very well.

Hopefully the OP's legal action will provide a focus on such slippery behaviour and could make other SLTs in schools like my daughters' take note. (Although in my daughters' school's case, I suspect they will just find the next nefarious agenda, as per your comment above, if there isn't a personnel change).

If the OP's legal action continues on to court, it will expose a significant part of gender identity belief for the safeguarding failures that it leads to. It will bring the topic of children who believe themselves to be the opposite sex into much sharper focus because very few people are likely to support sexually mature males (with penises) getting changed in the same changing rooms as girls... so will start asking more questions about why it's being allowed to happen. It probably won't address/expose autogynophilia, as the heterosexual teenage boys who are involved are arguably too young to fully understand what they are being drawn into (by the adults who are grooming them), but AGP is slowly being publicly exposed in other ways.

Perhaps enough of the public will start joining the dots and will force all of this out into the open🤞🤞

From your experience as a teacher, do you see a top-down leadership culture (in at least 2 out of the head, DSL and head of governors) that fully understands this issue and how it can be mitigated at a whole-school level? If so, I imagine the KCSIE guidance will work in your school. If not, I would be very wary of what these gaps can lead to.

@BonfireLady honestly, at my school I have literally no idea what my head or DSL's current opinion on trans matters is, and certainly not my chair of governors. We don't have any written policy. I am extremely interested to see what the training on KCSIE will be like in September, I don't know if they'll even mention the trans stuff given that it's in part 2 and the general assumption is all that sort of thing happens behind the scenes and whatever the current government rules are will be followed.

coercion that stops children understanding what biological sex means and why it can be important to know this.. "it's important to use someone's preferred pronouns as a sign of respect"

This is where people are going to part ways. Ok, so children transitioning is problematic, we have evidence of potential harm and it should be treated with caution. That's about keeping children safe.
This doesn't mean that the same translates to adults transitioning.
I know that many on here's preferred option would be that children are not told anything about trans at all in case it puts ideas in their head. However, gender reassignment is one of the protected characteristics in the Equality Act that we have to teach children about.

How to square that circle? Teaching kids not to be racist, homophobic etc, but deliberately misgendering a trans person is now fine?

This is outside the scope of KCSIE.

How to square that circle? Teaching kids not to be racist, homophobic etc, but deliberately misgendering a trans person is now fine?

Using correct sex pronouns (and normal English) is not offensive nor transphobic. It's part of the coercive control and abusive element of trans ideology that frames it that way. It's analogous to recognising the ethnicity of someone. It's an observation not a comment or slur based on that observation.

If you call someone who's black 'black' or someone who's white 'white' that's an observation, it's not a slur. Using correct pronouns is the same for transpeople, it's simple material reality. It's really not offensive. There are transphobic terms, correct pronouns are not.

Framing a neutral fact-based normal English usage observation as offensive all the time and trying to get children to believe that too is emotional abuse as defined in KCSIE. Apart from anything else even the most signed up to gender woo person cannot keep it up with the wrong-sex pronouns. As has been demonstrated repeatedly in the highly controlled environment of a court of law. Just imagine trying to keep it up day to day if it's impossible in that setting.

One of the most unforgiveable things about this ideology is creating divides between loving parents and children. I have with my own eyes seen the look of fear and horror on a parent's face when a correct sex pronoun slips out. It damages both child and parent mental health. It's unforgiveable that many children have been groomed into thinking parents don't love them if they can't keep up the wrong-sex pronouns because no-one can. Parents who would do anything for that child and yet are framed as evil monsters for not being able to totally rewire their brains and the way they use English for a child they gave birth to and know the sex of.

It's also not kind to tell children that other people won't notice basic observable facts about them like their sex.

As well as just being quite good on safeguarding and understanding what it really means, I think partly why the SLT in my school is so good on this is because they also have a number of religious groups within the school. I understand that some of the parents from these groups made it fairly clear that their religions did not go along with the fantasy of pretending sex isn't real and they saw being taught genderism as fact as a direct assault on their religious beliefs.

And I'm not sure how clearly it was articulated, but some of these religions do mandate single sex spaces so it may have been the case that children from these faiths would have been excluded if the toilets / changing rooms were mixed sex (even by stealth).

The way the school manages religious differences also laid bare quite starkly the coercive demands of the genderists - they were expecting everyone else to show obedience to their religion when the other religious groups would be accommodated in their religion but no other children were expected to follow their traditions / beliefs / language conventions.

Having said all that, part of the reason why the parents knew that a few years ago there were some genderist teaching materials slipping in is because the school publishes all PHSE / RSE resources online for parents to look at. Sunlight, basically. (and a good safeguarding culture trying to build trust with parents rather than the opposite / keep secrets).

Thank you for your response.
Unfortunately your school sounds like it's got the potential to be just like the one my daughters go to. A few red flags:

I have literally no idea what my head or DSL's current opinion on trans matters is, and certainly not my chair of governors.

I should imagine most teachers at my daughter's school have no idea either. It took 3 years and some unpleasant experiences for me to find out all of that. Given (I expect) there will be children at your school who identify as the opposite sex or as non-binary, the safeguarding angle of this should be crystal clear - so that all staff understand the risk that vulnerable children may end up believing they are in the wrong body and may enter an affirmation pathway towards medical transition (perhaps with their parents' support). I can see why you wouldn't know the head of governor's position on this but the head's and DSL's should be clear.

We don't have any written policy.

Neither does my daughters' school. They also don't follow the current KCSIE guidance on this. They told me they don't need to. I expect they'll start following it in September 2026 (after my daughter has gone) but will be making full use of all the loopholes and will be continuing on with the practices I listed in the examples above. Are there teachers in your school who share preferred pronouns in their emails or have "LGBT"/"LGBTQ+" posters up in their classrooms?

I don't know if they'll even mention the trans stuff given that it's in part 2 and the general assumption is all that sort of thing happens behind the scenes and whatever the current government rules are will be followed.

Obviously I'm not a teacher at my daughters' school. But I can well imagine that this describes things there. When it is mentioned (in materials that get used in classes) it is always within the context of kindness and respect. The kindness and respect of (actively) using preferred pronouns etc. By implication, children are being told that anything else is unkind. I've been told by my own children that it's unkind and disrespectful that I don't use people's preferred pronouns, even when I point out that I'm being respectful by not using any pronouns at all. The school has drilled this into them so well that they don't seem to recognise that it's unkind and disrespectful to me to expect me to pretend that I believe everyone has a gender identity.

This doesn't mean that the same translates to adults transitioning.

Whilst anyone over 18 has more freedom to make permanent choices about their body, that doesn't mean they're not vulnerable. Also it doesn't mean they won't regret it. Doctors don't tend to allow women to have hysterectomies until they are in their 30s because they recognise that women might regret an early, irreversible decision.
Additionally, there are autogynophiles to consider. If you were on a school trip with a male teacher (who identified as a woman), would you feel comfortable letting that teacher wander around the girls' residential accommodation alone?

I know that many on here's preferred option would be that children are not told anything about trans at all in case it puts ideas in their head. However, gender reassignment is one of the protected characteristics in the Equality Act that we have to teach children about.

Children can be taught about the PC of gender reassignment without being told they need to act as if people are the opposite sex. In the most simple terms, it means that any male who identifies as a girl/woman (and any female who identifies as a boy/man) should be treated no less fairly than one who doesn't.

How to square that circle? Teaching kids not to be racist, homophobic etc, but deliberately misgendering a trans person is now fine?

What is "deliberately misgendering"? In the vast majority of cases, anyone at school who has a transgender identity won't even be present when sex-based pronouns are used to describe them. Do you think staff be telling other staff and children to use preferred pronouns in this scenario? If so, that's coercion. It's also coercion if the child is present.

This is outside the scope of KCSIE.

I can't remember if the KCSIE guidance makes it clear that nobody needs to use preferred pronouns but thank you for reminding me to look. The draft gender questioning children guidance certainly did say this. Hopefully that's been transferred across to KCSIE. It's a fundamental part of safeguarding that everyone knows what sex people are. Coercion to use preferred pronouns reduces this because it can lead to confusion. Not always. Some people use them but can clearly separate out a person's sex from this without cognitive dissonance. However, as an example, staff (who I have spoken to... carefully) and children at my daughters' school appear to be very confused about the sex of one of the teachers. This teacher is male, is referred to as "she" and goes on residential school trips.

It does sound like your school is fully on top of this. Partly thanks to "belief wars":

I understand that some of the parents from these groups made it fairly clear that their religions did not go along with the fantasy of pretending sex isn't real and they saw being taught genderism as fact as a direct assault on their religious beliefs.

To be fair to the gender identity believers, the parents' religious beliefs may also be perceived as fantasy. However, this is the key bit:

The way the school manages religious differences also laid bare quite starkly the coercive demands of the genderists - they were expecting everyone else to show obedience to their religion when the other religious groups would be accommodated in their religion but no other children were expected to follow their traditions / beliefs / language conventions.

Expecting others to demonstrate the tenets of a belief that they don't hold is a hard no. Where it has a safeguarding impact, that no should be even harder. There are plenty of examples where it is e.g. FGM and underrage marriage being illegal, where it relates to religious or (most) cultural practices. Where FGM relates to the culturally-led practices of gender identity belief it isn't.

Sunlight, basically. (and a good safeguarding culture trying to build trust with parents rather than the opposite / keep secrets).

This is key.

What a good discussion. This is also my experience of numerous schools with a range of faith groups in their schools. They operate with care and skill to ensure that no groups are allowed to influence school practice for their own religious or political interest.
The requirement to share PSHE materials with parents will be helpful. Again too many age inappropriate, politically motivated, porn soaked materials have been produced by the usual suspects - hopefully the the sunlight of publicity will ensure that these disappear.
These are tricky issues to navigate and it's a shame that genderism is still being allowed to influence policy to the extent that aspects of KCSIE may allow trans extremism to continue in some schools.

Once upon a time (well 2000) the Government vetoed unisex floor to ceiling cubicles with shared washbasins due to religious reasons.

The Department for Education and Employment said they violate the regulation that pupils aged over eight must not wash their hands together.

The male headteacher arguing for his new £35k unisex toilets said that ‘Pupils were consulted, and it was felt that a mix of girls and boys would help to lessen aggression and vandalism.’ (Not sure the girls suggested being bad behaviour shields and mini-police?). ‘He dismissed fears of sex sessions, suggesting that pupils would seek somewhere more comfortable’.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2000/dec/05/education.schools

The safeguarding risks, and defying religion as a protected characteristic, were obvious from the start.

The Department does not collate the location of deaths (thankfully rare), sexual assaults and rapes in schools. If they did, they may have already seen a pattern in ‘disabled’ toilets, depending on if (mainly) girls reported assaults at the time. Ten years ago, Parliament discussed sexual abuse in school premises and it was recommended that data should be collected and collated centrally. Ofsted asked them several years later too.

No one has ever been able to give me a risk assessment or equality impact assessment on these mixed sex, private cubicle designs in schools (I have asked DfE, police, fire, RSPoA, Government departments, manufacturers). They started being introduced a few years after that article and now an estimated 25% of schools just have variations on this design. Ironically, some schools now have to barrier them off or have teachers on guard. Toilets are always going to be trouble spots but private cubicles are not safe. We need as few as possible.

It’s taken 20 years to sort this out.

@BonfireLady Given (I expect) there will be children at your school who identify as the opposite sex or as non-binary, the safeguarding angle of this should be crystal clear - so that all staff understand the risk that vulnerable children may end up believing they are in the wrong body and may enter an affirmation pathway towards medical transition

I'm not sure if we've ever had any children who have had any sort of medical intervention (puberty blockers/cross sex hormones). My school is in a bit of a backwater so we've never had huge numbers of trans kids, generally maybe a handful out of over a thousand kids and those numbers are dropping, not increasing. Parents have always been involved with any that I have taught. We've had a block of unisex toilets (the rest single sex) for years so toilets have never been an issue. No one has ever been allowed to use the wrong sex changing rooms, I think there is a private option. So while no, I don't know the head or DSL's personal opinions on trans matters, I've never been given any reason to think that they are rabid trans activists forcing girls to undress in front of boys or similar. We have quite vocal parents so I think my school is more likely to carefully toe the legal line to be able to head off complaints in either direction regardless of personal opinions.

Are there teachers in your school who share preferred pronouns in their emails or have "LGBT"/"LGBTQ+" posters up in their classrooms?

Not that I have seen.

Additionally, there are autogynophiles to consider. If you were on a school trip with a male teacher (who identified as a woman), would you feel comfortable letting that teacher wander around the girls' residential accommodation alone?

We don't have any trans teachers but I don't think that would happen at my school.

I can't remember if the KCSIE guidance makes it clear that nobody needs to use preferred pronouns but thank you for reminding me to look.

No, it fudges it. It kind of suggests that misgendering might be bullying, and that staff and kids who don't want to use preferred pronouns might consider using names instead, but it is not clear about anything.

They started being introduced a few years after that article and now an estimated 25% of schools just have variations on this design. Ironically, some schools now have to barrier them off or have teachers on guard. Toilets are always going to be trouble spots but private cubicles are not safe. We need as few as possible.

Toilets in schools are never safe. We have teachers 'on guard' outside our single sex toilets as well as our unisex ones. And CCTV pointing at the doors.

you call someone who's black 'black' or someone who's white 'white' that's an observation, it's not a slur. Using correct pronouns is the same for transpeople, it's simple material reality. It's really not offensive. There are transphobic terms, correct pronouns are not.

I don't think that the general public is with you on this one.

It sounds like some aspects of gender identity belief are being kept in check, but others are not.

"Toeing the line" legally here is very much open to (nefarious) interpretation.

If a school has accepted a child or a staff member as the opposite sex, because their passport says so, then they may well argue that the child/teacher has a right to use the facilities of the opposite sex. Obviously they may not, and it's likely to be the 'rabid TRA' type of influential leader who pushes hardest here.

But that's only a small part of the picture. There is plenty of legal wiggle room for schools to be a part in a child's journey towards medical transition. Children who go on to have medical interventions are way more likely to do so after they have left the school. But the impact that schools can have to validate this demand pipeline can't be understated. Any adult who takes part in a child's social transition is a part of that affirmative journey. Adults in school more so, because there is a perceived authority here, from students and parents.

We have quite vocal parents so I think my school is more likely to carefully toe the legal line to be able to head off complaints in either direction regardless of personal opinions.

Perhaps the vocal ones who demand that adults and children affirm their child's will be placated, by the school teaching everyone that it's important to be kind and respectful by using preferred pronouns?

No, it fudges it. It kind of suggests that misgendering might be bullying, and that staff and kids who don't want to use preferred pronouns might consider using names instead, but it is not clear about anything.

Thank you. This is better than nothing. I use names instead and have made it clear to staff that this is because I won't be a part of any child's social transition. I've asked them to look at the KCSIE guidance (from 2024 and 2025) and how it refers to the Cass Report... which states that social transition is not a neutral act. It's very clear that there is a lot of cognitive dissonance going on amongst the staff on this point. The apparent "neutral" position they've settled on appears to be that if the parents are on board, everything is fine and dandy. And... round and round we go, with a top-down culture of "kindness and respect" (that is actually more akin to authoritarianism), staff telling everyone why it's so important to validate everyone's gender identity... and lots of other things besides. I imagine it would be impossible for any staff member to question any of this up the chain.