Bishopstrow College (SW)
STUART NICHOLSON
Shaken Foundations – “Everyone’s Invited” Prior to June 2020, “Everyone’s Invited” mentioned within earshot of teachers meant a large-scale student party being planned. Since then, the phrase has come to mean a great deal more. Last March, the “Everyone’s Invited” (EI) website had 14000 testimonies; now it has over 54000. By June 2021, 3000 schools had been mentioned and the focus had broadened to the entire schools’ sector and to universities, and Ofsted had been asked by the government to carry out a rapid review of sexual abuse in schools and colleges. When Ofsted issued its report in June, the findings were staggering. Some children said incidents of sexual harassment occur so frequently that they see no point in reporting them. The online world was possibly worse, the majority of children reporting that they or their peers are sent explicit pictures or videos. Children’s views about what their schools provide were scathing: RSHE lacked the information and advice they needed and schools consistently underestimated the prevalence of online sexual abuse. One message cut through everything. Ofsted found that “the issue is so widespread that it needs addressing for all children and young people” and that we must “act as though sexual harassment and online sexual abuse are happening, even when there are no specific reports.”
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Not on our patch? Early responses from our Associations and from individual schools were defensive. Most of the Everyone’s Invited testimonies referred to events out of school, often at parties under the influence of drugs or alcohol, not when they were under the care or the responsibility of the school. That defensiveness didn’t sit comfortably. I felt like our foundations had been truly shaken; our perception of our schools as safe places where considerate and confident children got advice and support in making good personal and social decisions might be incorrect; maybe my belief that our children could talk to staff about anything that worried them was ill-founded? It felt like the children were warning us that, though kind, caring and well-meaning, we were in a fool’s paradise, blissfully unaware of some of their most difficult, yet everyday, challenges.
How to respond? Ofsted issued seven hard-hitting points in June; even more expectations of teachers and Heads. We were just about to start our “Term 4” that runs throughout July and August, and I admit I had neither time nor energy to galvanise our response. Instead, I waited, hoping that guidance would emerge to make it easier. Instead, I got covid, and 164 pages of KCSIE.
