Wider themes- Safeguarding

An Ofsted report conducted in schools across the UK revealed statistics around the extent of sexual harassment on and offline. It is seen that sexual harassment is now commonplace amongst school children and young people, therefore they felt as though they did not need to report this because of it being such a common occurrence. Of the schools that were reviewed it showed that:

Nearly 90% of girls and nearly 50% of boys have been sent explicit photos or videos of things they did not want to see or this has happened to their peers also.

92% of girls and 72% of boys said sexist name-calling happens a lot to either them or their peers.

This review showed a severe lack of reporting of these incidents and was happening in schools without their knowledge.

 

The issue of this problem was students felt it was the norm for them or their peers to be sexually harassed and therefore did not see it as an issue, this shows that they have not been educated properly on the extent of sexual harassment and been told where to go if this was to happen to them or one of their peers. From this, the schools have become unaware that this was happening to the children in the first place and have not treated it as a problem.

To solve this issue a school can provide children with help to understand the components and problems of sexual harassment, how to try to avoid this and what to do if it does happen to them. Schools should provide a safe place for students to be able to go to which is private and confidential and issues shall only be shared with people higher if a person is at risk. By creating a private place for students to go to, they will not feel judged or worried that their story will be told amongst everyone and therefore making the school a safer place as teachers will have a deeper understanding of how to prevent these things in the future for the children.