Staffordshire schools told to 'assume sexual harassment between pupils is happening'

Victims across the country speaking out online about rape and sexual violence and a national Ofsted review of sexual abuse in schools and colleges led to Staffordshire County Council's commissioning a task force to launch an investigation of the issue locally and recommend a series of actions.

A group involving county councillors Ann Edgeller and Kath Perry carried out the spotlight review earlier this year, gathering evidence from local education and safeguarding representatives and experts to establish the extent of the issue in the county’s schools and what action was already being taken to address it. The group’s report was presented to a scrutiny committee on Monday.

There were 107 enquiries relating to sexual violence and harassment made to the county’s Education Safeguarding Advice Service between May and December last year, the report revealed.

It said: “Referrals to the Education Safeguarding Advice Service (ESAS) and the Staffordshire Youth Offending Service give some indication of the extent of known serious incidents. However, harassment and abuse will be much more extensive than these referrals indicate and will span a breadth of levels and types.

“The (national) 2021 Ofsted Review concludes that peer-on-peer sexual harassment and abuse is so widespread that all settings should assume it is happening in their school.”

The county council review group’s recommendations include a more consistent approach across Staffordshire to teaching pupils about healthy relationships and a “one-stop shop resource bank” providing details of support organisations, training and teaching resources.

The authority has also been urged to write to the Government to seek further action to protect children from online peer-on-peer sexual harassment and abuse.

Reverend Michael Metcalf, who chaired the spotlight review, said: “Are our children safe? Are the pupils in our schools in Staffordshire safe, particularly in relation to pupil-on-pupil sexual harassment and abuse?

“These are perhaps unwelcome and uncomfortable questions. Nevertheless, during the last year public awareness of peer-on-peer sexual harassment and abuse among children and young people has grown rapidly across the country, together with a deepening sense of urgency towards addressing the issues involved.

“We have sought to gauge the extent of the problem, to listen to those involved in safeguarding children in schools and other contexts, to evaluate how far and how well schools and safeguarding agencies are taking the issue on board, and to ensure that there is a high level of liaison, coordination and mutual awareness between the various bodies and individuals engaged in safeguarding our children.

“The 2021 Ofsted work cited in our report found that as many as 90 per cent of all girls may have experienced some form of peer-on-peer sexual harassment or abuse during their school years or will know someone who has. A smaller but substantial percentage of boys, and of those who do not identify with conventional binary/heterosexual stereotypes, will also be victims of such abuse, or will know someone who is.

“Such harassment and abuse is so pervasive, and apparently so normalised, that every school should assume it is happening among its pupils.

“Older people may well be able to recall instances of abusive name-calling, sexist ‘banter’ and unwanted “laddish’ behaviour in their own childhood and adolescence. This is sadly not new.

“What is new is the greatly increased vulnerability of children to peer-on-peer sexual harassment and abuse through unprotected and unmonitored social media, as well as the prevalence and extent of such abusive behaviour, and the impact on children from an early age of a much more overtly sexualised adult world.

“We recognise that we have been engaging with a situation which calls for a major cultural shift in our society, and for the issues to be addressed at all levels and contexts, not just in schools. We recognise equally that much peer-on-peer abuse takes place away from school or beyond the supervision of responsible adults.

“However, abusers and victims are frequently fellow pupils at the same school, and victims often suffer impairment to their educational performance as well as to their mental health and general wellbeing. The safeguarding duty of schools and other related bodies must surely now include full alertness to the reality of peer on-peer sexual harassment and abuse, and all that that will entail.”