Which school are you?
In 2021 Estyn released a comprehensive report into peer-on-peer sexual harassment in schools. The findings of the report were acquired through a mix of group workshops and activities, direct discussions with inspectors and a workbook pupils used to document their thoughts and experiences. They went into 35 schools and it remains the most detailed investigation into sexual harassment amongst school age young people in Wales.
This report is readily available for anyone to read and discuss within their departments, but what we have found in our work in schools in Wales is three categories:
The school has read, summarised and implemented changes for their school based on the report. This group is small, but the work that is being done within these schools is exciting and inspiring.
The school has awareness of the report but feels overwhelmed with what to do about it.
The school has zero awareness of the report and therefore very little understanding of how PSH is manifesting in their learning environments.
Key for us at Our Schools Now Wales is the overwhelming agreement that pupils do not tell their teachers when they experience PSH. This is for a combination of reasons, including but not limited to: PSH is so normalised within society young people don’t even realise it’s something to report, young people would rather access the internet for guidance than turn to an adult, feelings of embarrassment, shame and confusion are prevalent.
For us, the most poignant reason is because pupils say they don’t think their teacher would do anything about it anyway. This is why we are so passionate about educating staff on the impacts of PSH. We love to be able to empower staff enough to be safe, proactive adults in their pupils and young peoples’ lives and our staff training sessions are constructed to enable this.
Our Wales team are ready to walk schools through best practice for dealing with PSH and to educate them on how to make incremental changes to their school culture so that it builds into wider societal change.
