Some encouraging signs from updated safeguarding guidance for schools – September 2025
Each September the Government issues guidance to schools on safeguarding – it is called KCSIE, which is a well-known acronym in the teaching profession — it stands for “Keeping Children Safe in Education”. With the advent of compulsory RSHE (Relationship, Sex & Health Education) in 2019, this has been a keenly watched procedure each year as it has been bedevilled by some of the controversies that have also dogged RSHE – the deliberate teaching of LGBT ideology, the encouragement of transgender support and advocacy for children, the rights or not of parents in having access to what their children are taught.
In the dying days of the last Conservative Government, draft guidance was published on “Gender-Questioning Children” and on parental access to RSHE materials used in schools, which was much more supportive of parental rights and less ideologically driven around “LGBT issues”. However, both the 2019 and new 2025 Statutory RSHE Guidance, refer to “LGBT content”, “LGBT issues” or the “LGBT community”, without specifying whether, or to what extent, this can include teaching about associated sexual practices — especially in the context of sex education in secondary school . The effect, in many cases, has been to normalise risky and harmful forms of pseudo-sexual practice, under the guise of ensuring children grow up prepared for “life in modern Britain” without “prejudice”.
For many parents, including those from faith backgrounds, this is, in effect, the state enforcing its values on children, who it views as their property.
It appears that if you disagree with, or do not consider certain practices as appropriate for your children to learn about, you are considered to be discriminating against any person who carries out such practices. It is this fatal conflation of practice and person – the latter being the only thing protected by the law and subject to discrimination claims – that has meant, even in Christian, Jewish and Islamic schools, teachers are forced to teach and “celebrate” practices totally antithetical to those religions. Hence, the not unjustified accusation that the Government is turning schools into “grooming factories”. Nowhere has this caused more anguish and anger than in the teaching of LGBT ideology to primary school children through programmes such as “No Outsiders” and “Educate and Celebrate”.
However, there is a sea change occurring, caused mainly by the reaction against transgender ideologues who have targeted children, mainly through the work of LGBT pressure group Stonewall. There have been a number of key developments which have influenced public opinion:
- The cases of those who did transition as minors and are now regretting it, such as Keira Bell.
- The Cass report exposing the unsafe practices at the then Tavistock Clinic and elsewhere.
- The court cases which have established “gender critical” views — holding to the biological reality of male/female distinction — as protected under law;
- and, finally, the Supreme Court judgment of this year establishing “sex” in the 2010 Equality Act as meaning the biological state of male and female, and not any other perceived gender identity.
The Government now needs to have guidance re-written across the public sector — including schools, the NHS and the Civil Service — to bring all such guidance into line with this judgement. Transgender activists and many unions, such as the NEU for schools, have resisted and even instructed their members that they can ignore the judgement.
In other spheres there are some signs of change; recent court cases have established that the police force should remain impartial and not espouse or champion “Pride” parades. There is evidence that donations to Pride and other similar causes have fallen. Even the Football Association has abandoned its Stonewall “rainbow laces” campaign (though it pledges to carry on its own diversity initiatives)! It feels as though the tide is turning slowly on the desire to force a particular narrative, and, in particular, a more cautious attitude towards children has emerged, particularly when it comes to the question of ‘gender identity.’ The previous Government published draft guidance on ‘gender questioning children’ which never had the status of being statutory, but the approach and much of the wording of the guidance made it into the 2024 version of ‘Keeping Children Safe in Education.’ In the wake of the Cass review the DfE advocated for a cautious approach:
- “caution is necessary for children questioning their gender”
- “in decisions about support for gender questioning children…seek clinical help and advice”
- “when supporting a gender questioning child schools should take a cautious approach … in partnership with the child’s parents”
- “schools should refer to our Guidance …on Gender Questioning children”.
All this has been completely reproduced in the 2025 version of ‘Keeping Children Safe in Education.’ The Government has promised to issue further advice to schools on the thorny issue of ‘gender identity’, but what is clear is that the benchmarks of caution, parent involvement, and rejection of ideology are likely to remain in place.
We don’t know exactly what approach the new Labour Government will take in the long term, but it seems that, at the moment, the hardline trans activists have lost some of their power. There is evidence that the Government is prepared to submit to public discontent and defend women and children via its official policies and guidance.
It is far too early to say this battle is over. ParentPower continues to receive calls for help from parents with extreme cases of their children’s schools promoting transgender culture at primary, as well as secondary, schools. But the trend to resist trans-influence, and put in place sound principles of schooling based on the natural difference between male and female, is clearly apace. In time this resistance will surely extend itself to reject the whole idea of gender self-definition, and proper safeguarding and protection of children may prevail again. But the advances towards sanity made so far are still very welcome in the context of what has provoked them.
Edmund J. Matyjaszek
Parent Power
