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. 

Listening to our students

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.

Not aware anything is wrong

But perhaps the most surprising - and worrying - finding was that harassment has become so normalised in schools that many children had no idea this behaviour is wrong, with only a third (31 per cent) of those who said they experienced sexual harassment reporting it to a teacher.

“Very often we heard young people [say] they’re not having any issues or problems because this has become so normalised. Being touched, being called certain names, has become part of their normal life,” says Sebastien Chapleau, assistant director of Citizens UK.

“Young people have had a culture that older people don’t understand - but when it comes to being on the receiving end of harm as defined by adults, that’s really scary.”

Taking action

Spurred on by the insights from the report, the 10 MATs involved are now working together to design educational approaches to tackling sexual harm and raising awareness among staff and students across their trusts.

This is being undertaken through class plans and lesson templates, improving reporting processes and working with external experts and advisers.

What’s more, the trusts plan on codifying all this work and presenting it to the government later this year, in the hope that it is implemented as guidance for other schools and trusts to help tackle the issue across the educational sector.

For Cathy Anwar, former chief executive of the Summit Learning Trust, who spoke to Tes on behalf of the 10 trusts, this work and its potential sector-wide impact is just as important as any changes to the curriculum or learning outcomes.

“We can’t send out people into the world with great GCSEs and A levels if they don’t understand anything about equality. And yes, that’s a hard thing to say because the pressure is on to get outcomes at the cost of everything else.”

Building evidence

So, what sort of work have the trusts been doing that might influence this policy document?

Anwar said one element that those involved have focused on is creating an all-trust culture that calls out sexual harassment and shows that it is taken seriously. 

“You need to have leadership from the very top and your board of trustees needs to understand what you’re doing and have your back,” she explains. “It is a risky space and they need to understand the implications.”

At Summit, this involved Anwar taking a copy of the Ofsted report, and the earlier 2017 NEU paper on sexism in schools, It’s Just Everywhere, directly to the board to support her argument. The problem is there, in every school, and it was their job to help her tackle it, she reminded them. 

Then, within her own trust, they drew up a programme of education that would tackle the issues the report had uncovered head-on across schools in the trusts.

This involved bringing in an external consultancy and creating their own working group from staff across the trusts. A key outcome from this was a recognition that more needed to be done to talk about equity - at both a social level and within school environments.

“We put into place a programme of training and development, and knowledge awareness,” explains Anwar.

“What we wanted to try to do was create a culture of low blame: we weren’t having a go because they didn’t know about it or criticising people for being ignorant. We said, ‘let’s all move forward together’.”

The importance of male role models

They also put on special teaching sessions, dedicated tutor time and guest speakers for assemblies on the subject, including the MP and campaigner for women and girls Jess Phillips.

A conference for all staff at the trust, including non-teaching staff, was also hosted to talk about equality inside schools and to explain why this work was taking place.

Once the training had been completed, the next stage was for each school to create its own steering group, with smaller expert groups within each school taking on extra research and training for specific areas of interest. 

“We had anti-discrimination, diversity and inclusion steering groups in each academy and an overarching trust steering group, with leaders and trustees, as well as parent rep members,” Anwar says.

“Each academy steering group fed back into the overarching one to ensure transparency and good communication across the trust.”

Particularly important for Anwar was having male teachers involved talking to young men about what respect looks and feels like in all relationships - friendships, partnerships and in the community. This was a tricky stage, she admits, but external support from consultancy Diverse Educators provided advice on including all staff and making the teaching relevant to all students. 

“How do you train teachers to teach about that? It’s a really complicated thing. Staff have to be competent and you’ve got to put resources behind it. If you don’t get high-quality training in, then it’s kind of hollow,” Anwar states.

Boosting staff confidence

Improving staff confidence and knowledge in this area is vital, and the Citizens UK research made it very plain it needs to happen quickly, as it revealed that many staff do not take the subject as seriously as they might.

This issue was something The Education Alliance MAT, part of the 10-strong group, made a major focus of its work, as its lead for secondary PSHE and assistant headteacher at Driffield School within the trust, Tom Fisher, explains: “It’s getting that mindset out there among all staff to challenge any form of sexist language or sexual harassment. 

“Raising awareness of the issue means being really clear what language is appropriate for students to use, and how staff report students, too. They are listening and there are reporting systems.”

Fisher says the trust has worked to make it clearer and easier for staff to understand how they can raise and report concerns that a pupil may come to them with.

“We simplified systems so everyone was really clear what to look out for and how to support students.”

For example, particular staff have been given responsibility for managing concerns and reporting to the senior team. In turn, students have been given information on what happens if they want to report an incident so they know how staff might proceed.

Work that cannot be ignored

Alongside all this, a teaching focus on the sorts of issues around sexual harassment and harm that pupils may not initially recognise has also been developed, so that the issue of sexual harm is “drip fed, year on year, term on term” within the trust.

Fisher says that so far he feels they are making “marginal gains” with this work but acknowledges it is a work in progress. There is, he says, “constant reviewing” of what is being done to ensure it has the maximum impact, especially as it will feed into the wider document being created.

That document, still being drafted, will be presented to the government later this year by Citizens UK with the hope it will help bring all schools - whether in trusts or not - more understanding of how they can help pupils understand, recognise and report sexual harassment in all its forms.

As the research findings underline, it is an area that cannot be ignored.

Safeguarding Awareness Week takes place on 22-28 May 2023. During the second Safeguarding Awareness Week, we’ll be inspiring children and young people everywhere to “speak, shout, share and open up” about the safeguarding issues affecting them