Parents ‘horrified’ at CofE primary school promoting radical gender ideology

A Church of England primary school is under fire for pushing “extreme transgender ideology” on children as young as eight years old.

Parents Kevin and Nicola Watts temporarily withdrew their three children from St Michael’s Church of England primary school in Tenterden, Kent, after discovering that teachers had shown their eight-year-old daughter a video on the book ‘It Feels Good to be Yourself: A Book About Gender Identity’.

The trans-activist resource teaches children that when they were born people “made a guess” whether they were a boy or a girl, since their bodies are only a “clue”.

‘Shocked and horrified’

In the book, the main character tells his parents at five-years-old that they ‘guessed wrong’ and he “was a girl all along”.

It also claims that “there are many different ways to be non-binary”, including that a child can be “neither a boy or a girl” or “both boy and girl”.

The Wattses said: “When we found out that extreme transgender ideology was being pushed on our 8-year-old without our consent, we were shocked and horrified. We felt very disrespected and betrayed as we had asked at the start of the year for our children not to be exposed to any LGBT ideology.

They added: “It is tragic that Christian parents can no longer send their children to CofE primary schools in confidence that they will not be exposed to extreme transgender ideology.”

Inappropriate

In response, Chief Executive Officer of the Tenterden Schools Trust Stuart Reeves acknowledged that the subject was “not appropriate for all children”, saying that the suitability of the resource should have been checked with the headteacher.

But he claimed that the resource complied with Department for Education and Church of England guidelines and did not promote “any particular ideology”.

A Church of England spokesman stated: “Decisions on the teaching of Relationships Sex and Health Education, including the resources used, are the responsibility of the school’s governing body in consultation with parents.”

Department for Education guidance states:“Schools should not under any circumstances work with, or use materials produced by, external agencies that take extreme political positions on these matters. This is the case even if the material itself is not extreme, as the use of it could imply endorsement or support of the organisation…Materials which suggest that non-conformity to gender stereotypes should be seen as synonymous with having a different gender identity should not be used and you should not work with external agencies or organisations that produce such material”.

‘Indoctrination’

Earlier this month, the new Education Secretary was quizzed on how she intends to tackle the promotion of politically contested ideas in the classroom.

In Gillian Keegan’s first appearance before the Education Committee, MPs pressed the Secretary of State on whether teaching “one political idea to the exclusion of all others” amounted to “indoctrination” and on the need for parents to be informed of their right to know what is being taught in school.

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