What the Cass Review means for schools

When the Cass Review was published in April, many of us working in schools heaved a sigh of relief. For many teachers the muddle surrounding the position of transgender children and those working with them caused serious concern. A maths teacher in Swindon was sacked for addressing a student as ‘she’ and writing her ‘dead name’ on the board, even though she/he was asking to be entered into a girls’ maths challenge.

Most teachers are in the job to impart knowledge, to encourage thinking and to play a part in guiding a child towards adulthood. We are not there to judge, mock or belittle. But we found ourselves increasingly confused. How much should – or could – we tell the parents? How should we deal with basic practicalities, such as which lavatories such students should use? And, for English teachers like me, how could we spend our days dinning subject/verb agreement into our students, only to have to use a plural pronoun about a single student? We were in a mess.

Many of the findings of the Cass Review chimed directly with our experiences of the world, as opposed to the rabid political thinking that was overtaking the debate.