‘TASKFORCE’ SET UP TO PROBE SEX PESTS IN COUNTY’S SCHOOLS

Review after student reports of harassment

A TASKFORCE is to investigate sexual harassment in Staffordshire schools and whether enough is being done to support victims.

The review will also explore the extent of the problem locally and how school staff are identifying and acting on pupils’ concerns.

Three scrutiny committees at Staffordshire County Council have teamed up for the work. Now they have set up a joint panel to quiz a range of experts next month.

It comes after several schools across the county featured on the Everyone’s Invited website earlier this year, which was created to give victims of sexual harassment a voice.

The anonymous reports in Staffordshire included:

One girl alleging that a male classmate repeatedly taunted her with ‘explicit details about his genitals’;

A former student claiming she was raped at a house party at the age of 15. She didn’t report the matter to her school at the time, but said she later tried to take her own life;

A female pupil alleging she was upskirted and ‘regularly felt up’ by other students on the school bus.

Bob Cooper, chairman of the safeguarding overview and scrutiny committee, said each of the three committees had put forward a representative to sit on the panel.

“It’s very much about what questions members would like to see asked,” he added.

The two other committees involved specialise in education and health issues. On January 14, the new panel will hold an evidence-gathering session.

It is due to include input from designated safeguarding leads in schools, primary and secondary school staff, police and the youth offending service.

The members will also look at the findings of a national review by Ofsted, which was published in June and described how sexual harassment had become ‘normalised’ for many pupils.

Inspectors visited 32 schools and colleges and spoke to more than 900 young people for the research.

Nine out of 10 of the girls questioned knew of incidents of sexist namecalling or being sent unwanted explicit photos or videos.

Inspectors were also told that boys talked about whose ‘nudes’ they had and referred to sharing them among themselves on Snapchat or Whatsapp as a ‘collection game’.

Unveiling Ofsted’s report back in June, chief inspector Amanda Spielman, left, said she was ‘shocked’ by some of the findings.

She added: “It’s alarming that many children and young people, particularly girls, feel they have to accept sexual harassment as part of growing up.

“Whether it’s happening at school or in their social life, they simply don’t feel it’s worth reporting.

“This is a cultural issue. It’s about attitudes and behaviours becoming normalised, and schools can’t solve that by themselves.”

Ofsted’s recommendations included improving relationships and sex education so topics such as consent and sharing explicit images are covered. The Government has also been urged to strengthen online safeguarding controls for young people.

Recently revised guidance from the Department for Education says schools should challenge inappropriate behaviour and not pass it off as ‘banter’ or ‘boys being boys’.

It also places a duty on schools to ‘respond appropriately’ to reports of sexual misconduct, even if they take place beyond the school gates.