Statutory safeguarding guidelines updated for sept 2026

[WarriorN]

I’ve just had an alert - looks like new guidance is out.

I’ve not looked properly yet though.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/keeping-children-safe-in-education--2

I was referring to the draft guidance on gender questioning children (from the previous government) that was lengthy and addressed a whole host of issues that schools have been struggling with, including addressing the fact that children shouldn't be compelled into getting involved with socially transitioning peers (that's a summary, not a direct quote).

Sorry for not making that clear.

Well, that's so much clearer! Why couldn't they have said that?

Yes. I've not gone thought the technical guidance yet - the consultation closes on Sept 30th.

I know that this is generally in the right direction. I'm sorry that the govt bottled addressing the detailed draft guidance on gender questioning children as it did go into considerable detail and addressed many practical issues that schools struggle with, which this doesn't.

But, along with the new RSHE guidlines we're a lot further in removing age inappropriate transactivism from schools and it's great that this issue is unashamedly part of safeguarding practice.

Definition are a bit of a minefield.
Generally accepted:
Toilet facilities
Sanitary accommodation that
contains water-closets (WCs) and/or urinals, along with washbasins and hand-drying facilities.

Conveniences means toilets. Facilities includes washbasin. In the toilets section points they mention facilities.

The room definition is more problematical. I believe in the spirit of standards it should be that cubicles are within rooms, even if it’s full height. It’s a bit like saying a fitted wardrobe is a room.

There’s also a problem with ‘lockable’ as that suggests you can’t open it. All toilets have to be opened easily from outside for safety reasons.

Surely for safety reasons (particularly in a school) they have to not be easily opened from outside.

It’s for safety reasons because of people collapsing inside the cubicle. You should make sure enough staff know how to open the doors at school. The manufacturer that supplied the school may need to be contacted if unsure. In Wales, Scotland and England they have all have this in regulations for years for non domestic toilets.
I don’t often talk about it for obvious reasons about misuse. (That’s another reason why a floor to door gap is important as you have advance notice of who is by your door).

There have been recent deaths in school toilets where teachers have tried cpr but it’s not been successful. In cases there have been delays. For a quick rescue you need to know they have collapsed in the first place and get in quickly. Because people tend to collapse onto the door, toilet doors should also be able to open outwards or be taken off the hinges. Again, this design feature is all in regs. Here’s the DfE wording from 2022:
‘Inward opening doors shall be able to open outwards through use of an emergency releasable door hinge or a lift-off facility to facilitate emergency assistance to someone who has fallen against the door inside the cubicle (blocking the door from opening).’

The new design guidance for the DfE talks about special shaped Allen keys - I think this is daft unless there’s an easily accessible set kept near each floor of toilets and enough staff are aware of their existence.

Here’s an example of a typical mechanism from a few years ago:

I appreciate, as much as anyone, this document is not at all perfect

but it is one hell of a lot better than before

guidance can be updated every year

governments change

until then we have a great document to hold schools feet to the fire and make sure they are absolutely complying with separated facilities - that will make a huge huge change and I am sure, discourage a lot of kids from dallying with this nonsense at all

after all if you can;t be affirmed in toilets and changing rooms - you're just playing around and other kids will focus on that.

@noblegiraffe

"Children who are seeking social transition should now also be told of the risks and benefits of social transition according to best evidence, and this should be done by someone with clinical training."

Which makes it something of a shame that no medical organisation has considered it worth doing the research to find out the risks and benefits are.

Well we have the study from Finland that suggests puberty blockers aren’t associated with an improvement in mental health so that’s a start. And we know that starting blockers puts you on a medical pathway with much more serious outcomes that need to be considered. Cass also warns that social transition is an active intervention with risks.

The NHS/KCL Pathways studies could provide interesting evidence about the impact of more general gender care (I’m assuming they’re still recruiting to the Horizon study even if the puberty blocker trial part of the programme is paused).

There are definitely risks that we know about that haven’t been part of the conversation before.

I wonder what people in a hundred years time will look back and think?

It’s for safety reasons because of people collapsing inside the cubicle. You should make sure enough staff know how to open the doors at school.

Ah! Can be opened from the outside and can easily be opened from the outside read differently I think. I was imagining those locks where you can use a 2p coin in the groove on the outside and just turn to open. Those would be awful in a school, no one would ever go to the toilet!

@noblegiraffe

Yes you're right. I had somehow forgotten the Finland study.

There are so many different designs used in schools. Someone sent me a link to a Waterloo Rd episode last year where the storyline was a girl had collapsed in the girls’ loos (with a decent door gap!) due to endometriosis and I was impressed with her ‘friend’ using a hair grip to get in in seconds. I am presuming this is a real school building they use.
Back in my teaching days I know a coin turn lock was used.

Yes, my DS' secondary has this. Completely shared space with washbasins opposite row of cubicles. The space is also very open plan with all cubicle doors visible from main corridor. The school is a relative new build and they were built this way.
None of the kids like it, boys or girls. I've tried raising with the school but they are not interested. Be interesting to see how they respond to this

@DabOfPistachio yes, especially as the DfE were happy to promote these designs. They didn’t used to be. When they were first suggested around 2000, the DfE refused them, particularly for religious reasons. Parents complained it wasn’t good for girls and students would have sex in them. But a few years later they ploughed ahead. Scotland and Wales are as bad.

If anyone wants more on the new design guidelines (for England) and how manufacturers are interpreting them, I have found this manufacturer always seems to be good:
https://www.bushboard-washrooms.co.uk/contentfiles/downloads/BushboardWashrooms_DepartmentForEducationRegulationsExplained2026.pdf
Note floor to door gaps are optional because of 5mm or less prevents taking photos (boys taking pictures of girls with smartphones) but female sanitary product dispensers have to be hidden (from boys) in the girls suite.

Girls toilet designs based on mitigating boys behaviour. I know girls toilets can be bad too but mixing them was always going to be a bad idea, particularly as you then have to make the cubicle completely private.

I am intending to use the cost of these single occupancy toilets as a reason to not put many (any) in at my local secondary

Taking it back to KCSiE, I like the implication that incidents in toilets should be recorded in
109-111. I did an FOI asking for the incidents in school toilets (rapes, sexual assaults, deaths, etc) and not only could they not tell me as it would take too long, but they said it would take too many man hours to even find out if they had the ability to tell me. I know from research that numbers are into the double figures of school staff (all male) who have been barred for hiding cameras in school toilets, for example. To design out crime you need to know the design and the crime. All this information should be fed into a system for safeguarding. Ofsted were clear on keeping records that were then collated centrally several years ago.

This.

It's a very useful lever for slightly timid members of staff, governors, parents who didn't want to be branded transphobic bigots to say 'safeguarding requires single sex facilities to mean single sex' and to be a bit braver in standing up for safeguarding and against bullying (because inserting a boy into the girls facilities is bullying of the girls).

Honestly don't know where schools who've been forcing girls to undress in front of male children will hide. They're failing to safeguard and acting against KCSIE if they do this. It's a massive safeguarding failure.

Surely @SingleSexSpacesInSchools your case is slam dunk now? It always should have been, really, but here we are.

I also think this idea that on the one hand there's so much about bullying in KCSIE but the idea that boys might pretend to be 'gender questioning' to bully and intimidate the girls is never even entertained is woefully naive. And indeed the stuff about 'emotional abuse' is in there but the idea an adult might specifically get a job in a school to bully and coerce children into their pet activist cause, or 'affirmation', as we know has happened, is also woefully naive.

Far from ideal - the bit about pronouns needs to be far more explicit, including the coercive and emotionally abusive nature of any request to compel language against normal English - but also far better than before.