A Catholic school in London has said children should use the “preferred pronoun” of transgender pupils.
Marian Doyle, headteacher at Sacred Heart High School in Hammersmith, a secondary school for girls, wrote to parents, saying that “as a Catholic school” its ethos must include promoting “greater wholeness for transgender individuals”. This would include “using the young person’s preferred pronoun and addressing them with their preferred name, recognising their intent to live as the person they believe God created them to be, and refraining from any judgment”.
The letter says that the Equality Act 2010 requires schools to help “eliminate discrimination”, and that guidance from the Department for Education places “gender reassignment” within this duty.
One parent of a girl at the school, who did not wish to be named, said: “If the letter the headteacher sent out materialises as policy and practices, it will be very confusing for the young people at the school. I see it as a very dangerous letter.”
In a statement, Mrs Doyle said: “Every child at our school is made in the image of God and is nurtured and supported to know who they are and how best to make use of their talents.
“Our community not only has a duty to uphold and maintain its charism but also to operate within the law, and as a Catholic school we must look to ensure we respond to different situations for young people, whatever they may be, with compassion, dignity and respect. In this, we seek the guidance of Jesus’s teachings in the Gospels to support us in our response.”
Mrs Doyle said that the letter was “part of a lengthy process of consultation within and beyond the school”.
The letter comes as schools face increasing pressure to comply with the government’s “British values” programme. Earlier this year a Jewish school was failed by Ofsted for refusing to teach pupils about homosexuality.
Catholic families leave their homes in Belfast after threats
Catholics in a cross-community housing project in Belfast have been forced to leave their homes after a sectarian threat, thought to be from Protestant paramilitaries.
The residents were living in a new housing development that was part of a government-backed “shared communities” strategy. The movement was a response to the need for reconciliation in the region following the 1998 peace agreement. Last year, a report found that nearly 90 per cent of social housing in the region remains segregated along religious lines.
Catholic families from the development have presented themselves to the Northern Ireland Housing Executive as homeless. They said they were visited by police warning of a threat to them because of their religion.
The police reportedly told the families they had received intelligence that the Catholics were unwelcome in the area and that they faced violence if they did not leave. In June, the area made headlines when the flags of a number of Protestant paramilitary factions were erected.
The action was seen as part of a process of intimidation against Catholic families.
Artist nun’s new mural unveiled
A nun who returned to art school after 60 years in a Benedictine convent has unveiled her second mural.
The artwork, by Mother Joanna Jamieson, 82, is of the Venerable Magdalen Taylor, founder of the Poor Servants of the Mother of God. Mother Joanna previously produced a mural at Buckfast Abbey hailed by critics as “stupendous”.
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