Activist schools are already threatening to flout new trans guidance being issued TODAY that warns they must tell parents about children wanting to switch gender

Activist schools are already threatening to flout new trans guidance warning them to inform parents when children want to switch gender - before it is even published today.

Long-awaited guidance from the Department for Education, to be published later, will call for a 'presumption against' allowing children to change gender at school.

A new 'parents first' approach will advise that in all but the most exceptional cases, they should be informed at the first opportunity if their child asks to be known as having a different gender at school.

Teachers and pupils should not be pressured to adopt a child's chosen pronouns and should not be punished if they get them wrong.

However, heads are already saying they will shun the guidelines - which are only advisory.

Kevin Sexton, executive headteacher of Chesterfield High School in Liverpool  told Sky News: 'I'm not going to change what has worked for our school for the last 10 years.' 

Chesterfield is a mixed comprehensive with 1,600 pupils - about 30 of them identifying as transgender, non-binary or genderfluid. It has gender neutral toilets and uniforms.

Mr Sexton said it has made up its own policy while waiting for the government - which has been wrangling for months over the detail of the advice.

Challenged on how parents might feel about not being informed about their child exploring a different gender identity, Mr Sexton said: 'Children come to our school and hopefully we have a positive experience.

'If we don't create a positive experience, they won't come to school, and they will be more unsafe, and more likely to make bad choices.'

The school insists parents should only be notified if there is a safeguarding risk.

Penni Allen, Chesterfield's director of wellbeing, told Sky News: 'If I picked up the phone and had to tell a parent… your child has just asked this question today. Your child is feeling like this today. We'd never be off the phone. We would have a hotline.'

The guidance has been delayed by government infighting for months and stops short of the total ban on social transitioning at school favoured by some Tory MPs.

But Maya Forstater, of the campaign group Sex Matters, said it could restore some 'sanity' to schools.

'After years in which the trans lobby has dictated practice in too many schools, parents will be able to use this guidance to demand a return to sanity in the classroom,' she said.

Schools will be told to protect single-sex spaces, like toilets and changing rooms, and to keep boys out of girls' sport. 

An official source said: 'This Government firmly believes parents should be involved in decisions about their children and much more caution should be taken, so this guidance means there should effectively now be a presumption against social transitioning in schools. 

'Alongside this we're giving much-needed certainty and protection to teachers and pupils so they will no longer feel forced to use different pronouns for gender-questioning children, and won't face a sanction for not doing so.

'It is a complex and sensitive issue but we've taken the time to strike the right balance.' 

Deputy Prime Minister Oliver Dowden hinted at the new approach at the weekend, saying it was important to adopt an 'appropriate scepticism about social transitioning whilst of course respecting children in that situation'.

The guidance has already sparked a furious debate on sites such as Mumsnet. 

One parent said: 'Lots of teachers are very young and therefore cheap. It should come as no surprise given what universities are indoctrinating their students with, that teachers fresh out the oven are spouting the same bulls**t. 

'It’s not that they think they get to decide everything, is that they think identity IS truth.' 

School leaders have been calling for guidance for months to clear up what one called 'a public minefield of strongly held and opposing views'.

Ministers have been alarmed by the approach taken by some schools in pandering to pupils who claim to have changed gender.

Maths teacher Joshua Sutcliffe was banned from the profession this year after misgendering a trans pupil and sharing his Christian beliefs in the classroom.

Today's guidance is likely to disappoint Tory MPs who wanted a total school ban on social transitioning – when boys adopt girls' names, pronouns, uniforms and hairstyles, and vice versa.

Rishi Sunak was said to have been sympathetic to such calls but the legal advice was that this would need a rewriting of the Equality Act.

It comes as couples getting married will be asked if they want to be called 'husband and wife' under woke church guidelines.

It is part of new 'inclusive language' advice published by the Methodist Church. Old-fashioned terminology 'makes assumptions about a family or personal life that is not the reality for many people', it warns.

The guide advises ministers to use gender-neutral language such as 'folks' to avoid 'subconsciously using phrases that may be misinterpreted as us favouring one sex over another'.

A spokesman for LGBTQ+ charity Stonewall said: 'This guidance, which we have not yet seen in full, needs to first and foremost make sure that trans and gender-diverse youth are supported to be themselves and have an environment where they can learn and thrive.

'There is considerable evidence that social transition improves the mental health of trans children and young people and from what we are hearing about this guidance their needs have not been properly considered.'