On the PSHE guidance (again, sorry) - seen a few takes, including that of my own union, emphasising that the guidance isn't statutory. Two things on that:

1) if it's not statutory, it's sure as hell trying to pretend that it is - the wording "must not under any circumstances" does not give the impression of something optional

2) fixating on statutory vs. non-statutory misses the extent to which schools are self-policing. league tables & ofsted mean that if someone in the DfE sneezes, schools immediately start introducing Task Forces on Good Sneezing Practice and a 5-Point Sneezing Excellence Plan

(this is a silly example, but - schools read other schools' outstanding reports, find things Ofsted praise, and do them - and this spreads like wildfire as "Ofsted says you have to...")

it doesn't *need* legal enforcement, because education reforms over the past 30 years have created an environment where schools are their own enforcers, striving to predict and enact what the government wants before they've even said it

an array different coloured pens for marking, written-out or printed-out stick-in learning objectives, 'deep marking' - all of these fads - none of these were ever statutory. but schools did them and made their teachers' lives miserable with them because of their fear of scrutiny

it takes a brave school leadership to resist even these things, to say "we're not doing that". being different is risky: compliance is absolutely the norm. so resisting this - which involves being ideologically bold, too - is going to be even more unusual

and many schools - particularly those serving working-class and racialised populations - are now part of big centrally-managed academy trusts, which dictate policy from above. so these decisions are increasingly taken out of schools' hands altogether

and if you think that means "we just need teachers and school leaders who are willing to resist this stuff" - yes, absolutely we do, we are trying to make that happen too. but the compliance mania has been baked into the system over decades; it won't be dismantled overnight