As numerous reports make plain the scale of sexual harassment concerns in schools, a collective of 10 trusts is coming together to tackle this societal scourge – and potentially inform government policy.
From nude images shared between mobile phones to sexist name-calling in corridors, the problem of sexual harassment inside school grounds is an issue increasingly on the agenda in schools and multi-academy trusts.
The scale of the problem has been made clear by everything from the revelations on the Everyone’s Invited website in 2021 to an Ofsted report in the same year that uncovered widespread evidence of inappropriate behaviour in schools across England.
For example, 90 per cent of girls and nearly 50 per cent of boys said being sent explicit pictures or videos of things they did not want to see happens a lot or sometimes to them or their peers.
In response to this, a group of 10 multi-academy trusts (MATs), including Summit Learning Trust, Bradford Diocesan Academies Trust, Fairfax Multi-Academy Trust, Archway Learning Trust and GLF Trust, tasked campaign group Citizens UK with conducting a year-long “listening exercise” to find out what’s going on inside their own schools.
The MATs had already been acting in concert since 2017, providing support and sharing resources, so saw this latest project as a chance to gain a greater understanding of pupils’ experiences.
To achieve this, Citizens UK interviewed and sought feedback from more than 6,000 children, from Year 7 through to Upper Sixth, about their experiences of sexual harm in their daily school lives.
The final report from this work was recently distributed to its members and some of the most shocking findings have been shared with me. They make for sobering reading: one in five children, some as young as 11, had witnessed or experienced sexual harassment in school and 21 per cent had received nude or inappropriate images on their mobile phone.
To read the full article click here: Sexual harassment in schools: how trusts are fighting back | Tes