Top public schools call in the lawyers . . . to teach lessons in sexual consent to children aged 11
DOZENS of schools, including Eton, are paying lawyers to teach pupils about the risks of ending up in court after having sex. Universities already hold sexual consent classes after a number of students were charged with rape following drunken encounters. Now schools are hiring legal experts to explain to children as young as 11 the dangers of ‘sexting’, – sending sexual images via their phones – or having sex without clear consent. The Schools Consent Project, which is staffed by legally trained volunteers, has held workshops in more than 100 institutions, from inner-city state academies to top schools such as Eton and Westminster.
At least 6,000 pupils in England and Wales have already attended one of the workshops, which cost £100 an hour.
Ettie Bailey-King, the project’s outreach officer, said they taught pupils aged 11 to 18 and were often contacted because teachers felt ‘uncomfortable’ discussing sexual consent.
‘The schools will invite us in. They’ll say we’ve had a huge problem with sexting and somebody has intimate photos leaked by someone else in the group and they just want to know what to do,’ she said.
The ‘core content’ of the lessons is what sexual consent is in legal terms, ‘which is a choice that you make with freedom and capacity,’ said Ms Bailey-King.
‘Then we go through various offences, so if someone touches you without your permission that might be sexual assault.’
For older children, one major issue the classes tackle is the dangers of having sex with someone who is drunk.
Ms Bailey-King said: ‘We talk about how if somebody is so drunk that they cannot say yes or no, that’s an example of not having capacity.’
She added that care is taken not to use sexually explicit references when teaching the youngest pupils.
National charity Family Lives welcomed the move but said classes were needed for even younger children.
Chief executive Jeremy Todd said: ‘We encourage parents to engage in conversations with their children about sexualised behaviour from the age of ten.’
Mandatory sex education classes will be introduced for all schools in 2019 and are expected to cover sexual consent.