Fury as NSPCC say male teachers can supervise girls in changing rooms

Male teachers will be allowed to supervise female pupils while they get changed at swimming pools or sports centres under new NSPCC guidance for schools.

The child protection charity has removed a policy that adults supervising pupils while they change should be the same sex as the children from its latest safeguarding briefing.

Campaigners and MPs last night called on the NSPCC to reinstate the policy, and accused the charity of making the change under pressure from transgender activists.

The NSPCC’s previous long-standing policy said: ‘Adults who are supervising children getting changed should be of the same gender as them.’ 

But in the children’s charity’s latest ‘safeguarding considerations for changing rooms’ briefing, this line has been removed entirely.

The NSPCC said it had made the change after a similar recommendation was removed from Department for Education (DfE) guidance that was updated this summer. But the DfE denied this last night and said no such recommendation was removed.

The NSPCC later said instead that it had made the decision based on a ‘variety of sources’.

Women’s rights campaigners said that instead of changing the reference from ‘gender’ to ‘biological sex’ – in line with April 2025’s Supreme Court ruling – the NSPCC ‘came to its own decision’ to remove the safeguarding guidance entirely.

Tory equalities spokesman Joy Morrissey described the NSPCC’s move as ‘completely unacceptable’, adding: ‘Male staff should not be supervising young girls while they are getting changed and nor should female staff be supervising young boys. That is just common sense.

‘The Government needs to urgently review this guidance and ensure there are clear safeguards for sex-based supervision. We must put the safety and wellbeing of children first.’

Maya Forstater, chief executive of Sex Matters, said it is ‘cowardly, weak and hypocritical of the NSPCC to try to pass the buck’ for scrapping the ‘common sense’ policy. She added: ‘This NSPCC guidance was never about equality law, or even the Supreme Court judgment. It was common-sense guidance, based on years of experience about how to safely supervise children changing.’

Ms Forstater accused the charity of ‘failing in its duty to provide guidance on protecting children from harm’ in a bid to do ‘what trans activists would prefer’.

She added: ‘As the leading UK body for the safeguarding of children, what is the NSPCC for if not to do its utmost to protect children? It appears instead to have decided that the safer route is to avoid offending trans activists, even if that puts the safety, privacy and dignity of children at risk.’ But the NSPCC denied it had made the decision under pressure from trans activists and said it may consider changing the guidance again when there is more direction from the Equality and Human Rights Commission.

A spokesman for the charity said its guidance was updated recently ‘to reflect the latest version of the Department for Education’s statutory guidance for schools’, but could not point to where the DfE’s guidance made such a recommendation.

The spokesman added: ‘It is categorically untrue to say that any updates to the NSPCC’s information briefing were made as a result of external lobbying.’