Ofsted Review of Sexual Abuse in Schools and Colleges — House of Lords, 2021-06-17
Topic: Education
Deborah Wilcox (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, Ofsted was asked to conduct a rapid review of sexual harassment and abuse in schools and colleges in England after thousands of harrowing testimonies detailing sexual abuse and misconduct in schools were posted on the Everyone’s Invited website this year. I was last teaching full-time in 2016, when these problems were emerging, but nothing was evident on the scale that has erupted in the past couple of years Inspectors visited 32 unnamed schools and colleges in both the independent and state sectors, including a number named on Everyone’s Invited, and spoke to more than 900 children and young people. Nine out of 10 girls and half the boys who took part in the review said that being sent unsolicited explicit pictures or videos happened "a lot or sometimes to them or their peers." A similar proportion of girls—92%—and three-quarters of boys complained of recurrent sexist name-calling. The report said: "The frequency of these harmful sexual behaviours means that some children and young people consider them normal." Although the review focused mainly on secondary school-aged children, inspectors went to two primary schools and found that there were already concerns about children viewing porn and inappropriate images on social media Ofsted wants head teachers to take a whole-school approach and develop a culture where all kinds of sexual harassment are addressed and sanctioned. It calls for sex education to allow sufficient time to cover consent and sharing explicit images, and it urges the Government to take the findings of the review into account as they develop the online safety Bill. Ofsted tells us that this is a cultural issue; it is about attitudes and behaviours becoming normalised. Schools and colleges cannot solve that by themselves. The Government need to look at online bullying and abuse and the ease with which children can access pornography The Ofsted report echoes the findings of a landmark report by the Commons Women and Equalities Committee in 2016. I simply ask the Minister: why has nothing happened since then? How can we be sure that real change will come about after the Ofsted report? We have had reports in the past and nothing has happened, so what is different now Earlier today in the education debate—eloquently led by my noble friend Lady Morris—I spoke about an outstanding report published yesterday by the Welsh Labour Government on their plans for education recovery in Wales, which puts learners at the centre. It is called Renew and Reform: Supporting Learners’ Wellbeing and Progression, and I again recommend it as essential reading Yesterday also saw the publication by Minister Jeremy Miles MS of a written statement on sexual harassment and abuse in education settings in Wales, and I sincerely offer the following suggestions to this Government from the Welsh Government’s review. The Minister will request Estyn, our Ofsted, to conduct a review into culture and process in schools to help protect and support young people better. While the findings of that review will play an important role in supporting settings and informing government policy, the Minister recognises that we cannot await the outcome of that review before he acts, so he expects that every school and local authority should have a designated lead responsible for supporting learners with relationships and sexuality education The Welsh Government have published extensive guidance on preventing and responding to child sexual abuse, including their statutory guidance, Keeping Learners Safe. Furthermore, they have published violence against women, domestic abuse and sexual violence guidance for school governors and a toolkit for education staff containing best practice, as well as supporting the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales with the development of its strategy. The Welsh Government’s National Action Plan Preventing and Responding to Child Sexual Abuse has 10 objectives, including objective 2: "Increased awareness in children of the importance of safe, equal and healthy relationships and that abusive behaviour is always wrong." Working with regional safeguarding boards, they are implementing the plan with the view that more must be done. I once again offer the UK Government, via the Minister, the opportunity to learn from what devolved Governments are already doing in this extremely difficult and sensitive area I have a series of questions for the UK Government. Will they now commit to using the online safety Bill to tackle the forced and unwanted sharing of nude photos and other online harassment? What support will the Government provide to schools to create the whole-school and whole-college approaches to tackling sexual harassment recommended by Ofsted? Does the Minister agree that the Office for Students’ recent Statement of Expectations falls short of the action needed to tackle the estimated 50,000 incidents of sexual harassment and abuse taking place on university campuses each year? Something must indeed be done.