School urged to rally round transgender deputy head when she returns after gender transition
Veteran teacher Mark James will start next term at the comprehensive as Madeleine
A MALE deputy head is to return to school after Christmas as a Miss.
Veteran teacher Mark James will start next term at the comprehensive as Madeleine.
Pupils who find it hard to digest will be offered “advice and help” at the 1,389-pupil school.
Head Fergus Stewart has urged parents and pupils to be supportive. He wrote in an email: “I am confident that our students will respond magnificently — indeed they already have.”
He saluted the courage of Mr James, a long-standing teacher at St Laurence Church of England school in Bradford on Avon, Wiltshire.
I am confident that our students will respond magnificently
Fergus Stewart
The head said: “We can confirm a member of staff is planning a gender transition from January 1. This is something that has been planned carefully with advisers, students, staff and parents in a clear and careful way.
“Our school community is united in supporting our colleague.”
The email, which went out on Wednesday, added that from New Year’s Day Mr James will be “known as Ms Madeleine James”.
The head, whose academy school’s motto is Care, Inspire, Succeed, wrote: “The following few weeks, in particular, will be an opportunity for us to practise our values of diversity, equality, teamwork, honesty and learning and to demonstrate that we really are, as our mission statement says, a caring, respectful, inclusive community.