This month we were invited to a meeting with the Department for Education in London to discuss their draft guidance for schools on gender questioning children and the LGBT content in the draft RSHE guidance.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.