A school trust has “paused” its plans to teach gender identity to pupils after a fierce backlash from parents.

The news from leaders at Meopham Community Academy in Longfield Road, Meopham, comes as government guidelines on transgender issues in schools released today stressed teachers are not “compelled” to address children by their chosen pronoun and must involve parents on any decisions taken by the school relating to requests for a child to “socially transition”, including wishes to change names, pronouns and clothing.

Under the guidelines published by the Department for Education (DfE), schools and colleges in England have been told there is “no general duty” to allow children to change their gender identity and they should take a “cautious approach” when considering social transition requests.

The advice says on the “rare occasions” where a school or college agrees to a change of pronouns, no teacher or pupil should be compelled to use them.

Meopham Community Academy was met with strong opposition from parents earlier this month over proposals to teach children from Reception to Year 6 about issues such as assigned sex, gender identity and the terms transgender and non-binary.

After a heated forum involving leaders and parents – with some threatening to remove their children from lessons if the scheme went ahead – The Golden Thread Alliance Trust, which runs the school and nine academies across Dartford and Gravesham, told KentOnline it was “pausing the teaching” to undergo further consultation.

Trust chief executive Garry Ratcliffe said: “We have paused the teaching of this and will not run the workshops in January so that it can be more widely consulted upon.

“There will be a consultation with colleagues, parents, governors and trustees in the New Year in which we will outline exactly what we do intend to cover within our curriculum and seek the views of this wider group.”

Speaking about the draft guidelines, Mr Ratcliffe said: “We are always keen to follow guidelines from the Department for Education and tailor it to our individual needs as a school and a community.

“But the draft guidelines will still be subject to further consultation as a school. We need to make sure we have an inclusive curriculum but we also need to make sure it is age appropriate.

“However, this does not mean not covering topics which may be difficult.”

The school issued an apology in a letter to parents just days after announcing proposals for the pilot scheme, which were met with a backlash from some.

The letter stated: “Through the Parent Forum and the discussions yesterday we have heard many different views both from those strongly in support and from those who have significant concerns. We want to assure you that we are absolutely listening and determined to get this right.

“To be clear, there will be no further teaching of sex education or LGBT+ content within the RSE curriculum at MCA until after the consultation period.

“I would like to apologise for the upset the pilot has caused. It was absolutely our intention to open the conversation to ensure you, as parents and carers, are part of the decision-making process and ensure you are well informed not to cause any anxiety or upset.

“The idea of the pilot scheme was to trial a three-part structure involving workshops for children, training for staff and a session for parents. We have found that elements of this have been really successful and other parts have been less so and this will be reflected within the way we choose to move forward.”

The plans were part of a planned shake-up of the Relationships and Sex Education (RSE) curriculum and the forum was supposed to be a way of involving parents as to which age they would feel comfortable with different aspects of the issue being taught.

The programme would have seen children at Meopham Community Academy taking part in a range of workshops, whilst staff have received training from Pop n Olly, which is one of the UK’s leading LGBTQ+ educational resources.

One parent, who attended the meeting but did not want to be named, said: “The meeting was very heated. There were lots of complaints.

“People are worried the content does not feel age-appropriate.”

When reviewing the content of the RSE curriculum the trust had promised to take into account pupil’s ages, maturity levels and cultural and religious backgrounds.

The idea of combating negative gender stereotypes would have been addressed in Years 1 and 2.

Years 5 and 6 would have looked at understanding, identifying and defining different sexual orientations and understanding and defining terms like assigned sex, gender, transgender and non-binary.