Long-awaited guidance to help schools with students who are questioning their gender is still not ready, the education secretary has admitted.
Ministers had said schools would be provided with the guidance before pupils broke up for their summer holidays, but Gillian Keegan said it is "still not complete".
In an interview with broadcasters about how teaching unions in England had agreed to end strikes, Ms Keegan was asked why the guidance had still not been published.
"It’s still not complete. I was hoping to get it out before the school holidays. It is quite tricky to try and navigate this and I think we wanted to just take a little bit of time," she said.
"I think it is so sensitive and we wanted to make sure we got it right and we also want to take a bit of time to just consult with more school leaders and teachers as well because we kept it to a quite small group.
"So we just wanted to consult a bit more widely as well but hopefully we are still working on it and hopefully it shouldn't be too long."
The guidance is supposed to help schools deal with issues such as whether to introduce gender-neutral toilets or changing rooms.
