Asleep at the wheel: An examination of gender and safeguarding in schools

A new report by Policy Exchange today reveals that schools are increasingly becoming influenced by gender ideology, to the extent that fundamental safeguarding principles are being compromised by school’s approaches to children with gender distress and their peers.

New research within this report demonstrates that many schools are failing to routinely inform parents when a child discloses gender distress, compromising single-sex spaces, and many are teaching gender identity beliefs within Relationships, Sex & Health Education (RSHE) as if they are facts. Gender affirmative care is prevalent within the school system, despite this being at odds with safeguarding principles that have been enshrined in law for decades.

The report also highlights how gender identity beliefs came to be so embedded within the school system, by tracking the influence of external agencies promoting radical and unscientific beliefs within both the Department for Education and schools themselves. This has created a safeguarding blind spot when it comes to the issue of gender, which must be rectified urgently.