This month we were invited to a meeting with the Department for Education in London to discuss their draft guidance for schools on gender questioning children and the LGBT content in the draft RSHE guidance.
The previous government’s consultation on gender questioning children closed in March 2024, and the consultation on revised relationships, sex and health education (RSHE) statutory guidance closed in July 2024. This month’s meeting was set up by the Department for Education as part of the work they are now doing to analyse the consultation responses, consider the evidence and “talk to stakeholders to understand how best to ensure children’s wellbeing so they will thrive at school.”
Our spokeswoman Tracy Shaw attended a 90-minute roundtable with representatives from other organisations. Each contributor was given a limited time to make their points individually. However we have been assured that the key outputs from this meeting will be summarised and shared with ministers.
Below is the text of Tracy Shaw’s submission on behalf of Safe Schools Alliance:
“No child should be treated as if they are the opposite sex in schools. This guidance is an inadequate response to a systemic safeguarding failure. Safeguarding must be prioritized in law and enforced by this department, which has consistently failed to centre children’s wellbeing. Activists in the civil service, teaching profession, unions, and others are driving policies that undermine safeguarding. Any guidance on this issue needs to use and refer to KCSIE which is the bedrock of safeguarding in schools. Safeguarding training needs to be improved, audited and approved at government level to ensure everyone is getting the same message.
The conflation of inclusion and safeguarding in school leadership roles has deepened this failure, as DEI initiatives take precedence over children’s wellbeing. Parental alienation is widespread, perpetuated by weak safeguarding frameworks. The complaints system is not fit for purpose and schools are marking their own homework. This guidance does little to restore trust or resolve these failures. Only a public inquiry can do that.
Lobby groups have sold politically indoctrinated, damaging and inaccurate education materials to time-poor schools, and we are seeing instances of students who have been groomed by adult activists running LGBT+ lunchtime clubs for vulnerable children with no safeguarding applied. These groups are often focussed solely on gender and push to change school policy, whilst school leaders disregard their safeguarding training and allow them to go ahead unchecked. If this involved any other political issue, Prevent would be invoked, and concerns about radicalisation raised.
It is alarming that the Department for Education lacks both the expertise and willingness to grasp these concerns, despite repeated evidence. We have been delivering materials and policies that contravene the Education Act and safeguarding to this department for 5 years and we have been repeatedly told there is nothing the DfE can do as it’s up to the schools to decide what is appropriate. Any emails between your department and Safe Schools Alliance will demonstrate how our concerns have been minimised and rejected. In the same way Justin Welby ignored warnings within his Church, these issues are being dismissed. When the inevitable public inquiry, judicial review and class action lawsuits occur, let it be on record that these systematic breaches in safeguarding, fuelled by gender activism, were consistently raised.
Finally, safer recruitment must be properly understood and embedded, not only amongst those working directly with children in any capacity but also amongst those working on policy, materials, or legislation that affects children. We have seen too many incidents of people working in leadership roles in LGBT+ organisations have been found to be predatory. The application of Safer Recruitment would have ensured these people were not allowed access to children, or to write materials for schools or to influence policy.
We would be interested to ask, for the record, who in this room has had safeguarding and safer recruitment training as everyone who writes policy for schools needs to have robust and up to date safeguarding training?”
Only one person said she had had the training, and this was in her capacity as a school governor rather than as a result of working in the Department for Education. It is worth noting that nobody responsible for the KCSIE (Keeping Children Safe in Education) guidance was present at the meeting.
Although we have doubts over the breadth and depth of engagement on this issue from the DfE, we recognise that they are now asking for input from groups like ours where previously they did not. We felt it was important to state our concerns for the record, and hope that they will be noted.
Just want to say — that is a brilliant submission — probably destined to be disregarded by those weak-minded mean-spirited child-abusing creatures.
Couldn’t agree more. Children are being ‘socially transitioned’ in our schools across the U.K.; sometimes without the knowledge of peers and other parent/carers. This happens especially with very young pupils (where ‘passing’ is less of an issue) and other children and their parents, are not told. Teachers have expressed their concerns to me because they fear they will lose their jobs and livelihoods, if they voice their safeguarding worries, at work. I’ve emailed my new Labour MP Michael Payne, four times to express my own concerns – no reply. We are in the midst of complete institutional capture by the quasi religion of ‘trans’ and consequently all safeguarding in relation to this issue, has been turned off. Words fail. I increasingly believe only litigation by ‘detransitioners’ starting in the USA will bring an end to this criminal abuse of children’s minds and bodies. It is the most homophobic and misogynistic, physician assisted, self harm social contagion imaginable.
Thank you for for fighting to protect our children. I wonder if anyone in government would sign a document saying they personally would be happy to be held accountable for any safeguarding failures under their watch – I very much doubt it.
I think litigation of institutions and individuals will be the only way out. People need to be sued and/ or sent to prison. Children have been, are being and (if Cass has her way with trials) will be, profoundly harmed – will be given life changing injuries curtesy of our NHS. All in the name of physician assisted self harm, presented as magical metamorphosis.
Interestingly I had a similar response from the DfE about recent specifications for enclosing toilet cubicles in secondary schools.
If any child is medically vulnerable (such as those who have seizures, or hypos, or collapse through breathing or heart problems), they will now not be noticed if they have collapsed on the floor inside the cubicle from the outside. In fact the words ‘safety’ and ‘safe’ mentioned throughout DfE documents are not mentioned at all in the toilet design section. The gap between the floor and the toilet door is now set at 0.5cm for all new and refurbished secondary schools. However, the word ‘privacy’ is mentioned a lot. This is their reason for the change.
When I asked the DfE how is this safe the answers are that:
• It’s ultimately the governors’ responsibility
• Schools should know their cohort and provide for them accordingly
• Children should be supervised
To take one disability as an example: There will be roughly 9-12 children with epilepsy in an average sized secondary school (nearly 1% of the population). There will be others that have seizures for the first time at school – maybe one offs. For any first time seizure you should call an ambulance immediately. If you are aware a child has seizures and the seizure lasts over 5 minutes you should call an ambulance. The teenage years are a common time for seizures to start.
The reason so many people collapse in a toilet cubicle is because that’s where people head to when they feel nauseous or ill. But how much longer before pupils are found – because privacy is more important than having a safety gap at the bottom of the door?
There is no school that can say for definite that all pupils and all future pupils will not need medical assistance from collapsing. But safety has literally been replaced with privacy. There can not have been any impact assessment on children with invisible disabilities nor for those previously healthy children having a medical emergency.
Enclosing toilet cubicles is doing the opposite of safeguarding. It is making schools more dangerous for any pupil at the most critically vulnerable time of their life. And it’s the school’s and governors’ fault when it goes wrong.