The “Asleep at the Wheel: An Examination of Gender and Safeguarding in Schools” report reveals that many UK schools are neglecting the most basic safeguarding duties when it comes to gender identity. Parents are being excluded, single-sex spaces are disappearing, and contested ideologies are being taught as truth. Vulnerable children—including girls, autistic pupils, and those in care—are being pushed towards social and even medical transition without proper oversight.
The report also traces how gender identity beliefs became embedded in education, revealing the influence of external agencies promoting radical and unscientific ideas across the Department for Education and schools alike. This has created a systemic safeguarding blind spot. Urgent action is now required to restore safeguarding as the first and non-negotiable duty of every school.
Summary of Contents
The report argues that many UK schools are compromising long-established safeguarding principles by adopting gender-affirmative practices and teaching contested gender identity beliefs as fact. Drawing on Freedom of Information requests to over 300 secondary schools, it finds widespread safeguarding lapses:
- Parents excluded: Only 28% of schools reliably inform parents when a child discloses gender distress.
- Failure to involve safeguarding leads: 33% did not involve their Designated Safeguarding Lead or medical professionals.
- Self-ID policies: Around 40% of schools allow gender self-identification, bypassing parental input.
- Single-sex facilities eroded: At least 28% of schools no longer maintain single-sex toilets and 19% lack single-sex changing rooms, exposing girls in particular to risk.
- Curriculum concerns: 72% teach that gender identity may differ from biological sex, and 25% teach that children can be “born in the wrong body”.
The report stresses that affirmation is a medical intervention, not a neutral act, and schools are neither qualified nor legally permitted to initiate it. By facilitating social transition without parental consent or clinical oversight, schools risk pushing children onto irreversible medical pathways.
It also highlights over-representation of vulnerable groups among children with gender distress—girls, looked-after children, autistic children, and those with poor mental health—meaning safeguarding vigilance should be higher, not relaxed.
Importance for Safeguarding Children
Safeguarding is about protecting children from harm, ensuring safe environments, and involving parents in key decisions. This report shows those principles are being undermined when it comes to gender issues:
- Parental Exclusion is a Safeguarding Breach
Schools are withholding critical information about children from parents, even though the law and safeguarding guidance make parental involvement central unless parents are a proven risk. This undermines trust and removes children’s strongest advocates. - Erosion of Single-Sex Boundaries
Allowing boys into girls’ toilets, changing rooms, or sports compromises privacy, dignity, and safety—all vital safeguarding standards. Girls, especially those with past experiences of assault, are placed in vulnerable situations. - Confidentiality Promises to Children
Teachers promising secrecy to children about gender matters breaks safeguarding rules. Proper safeguarding requires information sharing with leads, agencies, and parents to protect the child. - Teaching Ideology as Fact
Presenting “born in the wrong body” narratives in RSHE lessons is both politically partisan (illegal in schools) and potentially harmful. Safeguarding requires fact-based, age-appropriate teaching that avoids reinforcing stereotypes or steering children toward medicalisation. - Neglect of Other Children’s Rights
Safeguarding applies to all pupils, not just those in distress. Policies that require peers to affirm identities or share private spaces compromise the rights and wellbeing of the wider student body. - Medicalisation Without Oversight
By treating gender affirmation as a default, schools are effectively engaging in medical decision-making without training, clinical expertise, or parental consent—a profound safeguarding failure.
Conclusion
Safeguarding exists to protect children from harm, to keep parents informed, and to ensure schools remain safe environments. When those principles are set aside for ideology, it is children—especially the most vulnerable—who pay the price.
Follow the link to download the publication:
https://policyexchange.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/Asleep-at-the-Wheel.pdf