GCSE students will be encouraged to use French, German and Spanish ‘inclusive language’ under course guidance that comes into force this year.
Guidelines from Edexcel, one of the largest exam boards in England and Wales, includes a section on the ‘use of gendered language’ within its 2026 specifications and endorses Stonewall’s ‘Creating an LGBTQ+ Inclusive Secondary Curriculum’.
In a Spanish revision guide, students are asked to translate the sentence “my brother is transgender and happy”, while a vocabulary list “about yourself” includes words such as “non-binary” and “bisexual”. It does not, however, mention the terms male or female.
Stonewall
The exam board, which is owned by the publisher Pearson, will allow students to use “non-binary pronouns, the equivalent of ‘they’ instead of ‘he’ or ‘she’ in English” and “gender-neutral nouns, whether indicated by adding punctuation, asterisks or using alternative spellings”.
In Edexcel’s 2021 video on gender, diversity and inclusion in languages, a Languages Subject Advisor teachers to “take a look at the Pearson Stonewall inclusive curriculum guide for secondary schools. This offers suggestions on stepping up as an ally to non-binary people as well as guidance on the use of language.”
Writing in the guide’s foreword, Pearson’s President of English Language Learning, Sharon Hague, emphasised that “Pearson is proud to sponsor this Stonewall guide” and it is “important to go further” than ensuring “there is no anti-LGBTQ+ language in schools”.
‘Ideology by stealth’
David Bromley, an Education Officer at The Christian Institute, warned: “Pearson is abusing its ownership of an exam board to embed gender ideology in the curriculum by stealth.
“This undermines schools’ clear legal duty of impartiality, the integrity of education and exposes children to an ideology that has done profound harm. It places teachers, parents and pupils who disagree, for religious reasons or otherwise, in a very difficult position.”
In response to media attention, a Department for Education spokesperson stated: “Our expectations are clear: gender identity is an area of significant debate. Schools should not endorse any particular view or teach it as fact – including the idea that all people have a gender identity.”
Free speech
In a GCSE revision guide for citizenship studies, Edexcel also claims that “Gender can change individual identity. For example, an individual born in one gender might choose to change to another gender, with changes in appearance, clothing, and practical aspects such as which public toilets they use.”
Under examples of discrimination, the exam board claims that it is “gender reassignment discrimination” to only provide toilets for “men or women”.
Freedom of speech, it states, “may be misused to promote extremist views” and citizens have a responsibility to “not offend”.
But the founder and General Secretary of the Free Speech Union, Lord Young of Acton, told The Daily Telegraph: “This revision guide is encouraging children to cancel their classmates for saying something they find offensive. It’s whipping up cancel culture in schools.”
He quoted Lord Justice Sedley’s famous remark: “Free speech includes not only the inoffensive, but the irritating, the contentious, the eccentric, the heretical, the unwelcome and the provocative, provided it does not tend to promote violence. Freedom only to speak inoffensively is not worth having.”
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