Showing respect

Stamford’s Learning for Life curriculum, which teaches pupils RSE made the Lincolnshire school a finalist in our awards campaign. Kendal Mills, Deputy Head (Pastoral) tells us more

The recent allegations of historic peer-on-peer sexual harassment and abuse by students at thousands of schools, colleges and universities rocked the world of education, and the harrowing accounts written on the Everyone’s Invited website made for difficult and painful reading.

As schools, we needed to respond without any hint of defensiveness or by appearing to underplay or even deny the problem.

The media-coined term ‘rape culture’, was initially applied to ‘private’ schools and tended to be linked to words like ‘elitism’ and ‘entitlement’. That was unhelpful and somewhat misleading because it generated a caricature of the issue. The thousands of allegations made by current and former students were varied – offensive and degrading language used by male students towards female students, body-shaming, indecent postings online, non-consensual sexual touching and, in extreme cases, rape – so, as schools, our response to that complex range of transgressions needed to be sure-footed enough to address them all in a variety of ways.

Although it only became statutory from September 2020, Stamford School has been delivering a robust and relevant Relationships & Sex Education (RSE) curriculum for many years. We’ve always believed that part of Personal, Social and Health Education (PSHE) – which we now call Learning for Life – to be of central importance, mainly because it touches on so many aspects of young people’s lives and is territory that they, by their own admission, find fiendishly difficult to negotiate.

In year seven – ages 11 and 12 – our focus is very firmly on respectful relationships of all

FINALIST

An RSE curriculum has been taught at the school for several years

IN YEAR EIGHT, WE EXPLORE ONLINE BEHAVIOUR because that tends to be the age when boys and girls begin to get drawn into SOME OF THE MORE UNSAVOURY ASPECTS OF THE ONLINE WORLD, SUCH AS THE SENDING OF INDECENT IMAGES

Stamford School works with local relationship-based organisations and charities to educate students

kinds and incorporates a strong anti-bullying message. In year eight, we explore online behaviour because that tends to be the age when boys and girls begin to get drawn into some of the more unsavoury aspects of the online world such as the sending of indecent images of one another (something that in their minds is increasingly ‘normal’ to do) and writing offensive messages in group chats or during online gaming sessions. In doing so, we draw quite naturally on the work done in year seven on respectful relationships and extend that into their online lives – which they often perceive as being totally separate from ‘real life’. This continues through to year 13.

Teaching boys about consent and the distinction between consensual and nonconsensual sexual activity can be daunting, and delivering such critically important messages in the right way needs clear thinking and a great deal of sensitivity. After all, we’re involving ourselves in very intimate aspects of young people’s lives, and the topic feels awkward for many of them. While colleagues are happy to engage with the topic in our Learning for Life lessons, we do make use of external facilitators who possess greater expertise and with whom students often feel they can be more open and ask questions they might not wish to ask their teacher or tutor.

We’re fortunate to have access to a local organisation called The Conversation (theconversationstamford.co.uk) whose practitioners run workshops and talks on healthy relationships, consent, e-safety (which they rather aptly call ‘cyber wisdom’) and the deeply corrosive impact of online pornography on the brain of the developing male.

Similarly the Good Lad Initiative, a Londonbased charity, provides excellent advice designed to encourage boys and young men to tackle the root causes of gender inequality, challenge toxic masculinity, and teach them to grow up to become respectful, sensitive men who understand that consent lies at the heart of all relationships. The local police also make regular visits to educate boys from year 10 upwards about the potential legal consequences of non-consensual sexual behaviour.

In the months following the extensive whistleblowing which took place on Everyone’s Invited and other online platforms, it has become clear that boys of all ages are genuinely worried about those boundaries and are increasingly asking open and probing questions. Sometimes those questions are difficult to grapple with, and answers can sometimes lead to even greater uncertainty and concern. But the fact that such questions are being asked is a positive sign, and should be seen as an expression of desire for change. It’s up to schools, colleges and universities to continue to lead that change.

Consent, cyber wisdom and challenging toxic masculinity are key topics for discussion in RSE lessons