Peer-on-Peer Abuse Blog

Let’s face it, children are not always kind to each other.

Despite our best efforts as teachers, name-calling, teasing and other forms of bullying have always been part of school life, a fact not lost on the media and popular culture. Think of the 2004 cult film, Mean Girls, Draco Malfoy in the Harry Potter series or even as far back as 1857 and Thomas Hughes’s classic novel, Tom Brown’s Schooldays, which chronicled the merciless bullying of the new boy, Tom Brown by his nemesis, Flashman.

But over the last few years, something darker and even more concerning has come to light. According to recently released police figures, reports of children sexually abusing other children have doubled in just two years with figures for 2018-19 showing over 16000 incidents of sexual abuse among under-18s. In the vast majority of these cases, the reported abuse was carried out by boys on girls and in around 10% of cases the reported abuser was aged just 10 or under.

The latest figures come just over a year after a young woman, Soma Sara set up the website Everyone’s Invited where survivors of abuse, mostly school or university aged girls and women, were able to post harrowing accounts of sexual harassment and abuse. The platform now has over 50 000 testimonies.

Following Everyone’s Invited, Ofsted carried out a review which revealed just how prevalent sexual harassment and abuse (including online sexual abuse) is for children and young people. The abuse ranges from relatively low-level harassment such as persistent, derogatory, sexist remarks or name calling to serious sexual assault and rape. A particular concern highlighted was the large number of children who reported being sent unsolicited sexualised material online or else were pestered for indecent images or “nudes”.

Clearly, these findings are shocking but if we are going to do something about this situation then we first need to understand what exactly is going on. Some have suggested, for instance, that the rise in the figures is a result of more children and young people coming forward to report abuse. There may be some truth in this (and if so, that is a good thing), but if anything, these figures are likely to be a huge under-representation of the true picture. For all sorts of reasons, many young people will not report sexual harassment and abuse. This may be because they fear that they will not be believed or that somehow, they themselves were at fault. They may be being coerced or simply cannot face telling their parents or a teacher. But, as Ofsted found in their review, many young people are not reporting abuse because to them, it’s just “normal” and something that in many cases, happens to them “on a day-to-day” basis. Consequently, many may not recognise the abuse for what it is or else will try to minimise the harm that they are experiencing.

Whatever the reason, it seems clear that, as schools, we need to do more to safeguard and protect our students. Recent changes to statutory safeguarding guidance and Relationships and Sex Education mean that all children are now taught about issues such as consent, online safety and how to recognise and report different kinds of abuse and coercive behaviour. Increased safeguarding training for teachers, guidance and how to respond to disclosures and, where necessary, a comprehensive review of school culture will also help to ensure that this kind of behaviour can never be tolerated.

But schools cannot be expected to work alone to solve what is, clearly, a wider, societal problem. From an increasingly early age, children now have unfettered access to an online world where aggression, pornography and other harmful content are commonplace. Add to this a hyper-sexualised society and a toxic mix of celebrity culture, objectification of women and impossible notions of body image and it’s easy to see why many children and young people feel out of their depth when it comes to relationships.

At KGS we are determined to maintain a school culture where everyone is valued and respected and where abuse, harassment or discrimination of any kind is never accepted. We are rightly proud of our PSHE and pastoral programme which is continually under review and informed by student listening and mentoring groups, staff training and an emphasis on equality, diversity and inclusion. 

This year we will also be introducing two new initiatives for our First and Second Year students: Tender is an organisation that promotes positive relationships through Drama. In September our students will work with Drama teachers from Tender in a month-long course of engaging drama workshops designed to help our students build and foster healthy relationships and to understand personal boundaries and consent. Later in the autumn term our students will be working with English Football’s Show Racism the Red Card, the UK’s leading anti-racism educational charity. During the day, our students will work with a team of educators and ex-professional footballers to learn about the causes and consequences of racism and prejudice.

We are also looking forward to the return of Beyond Equality, a nation-wide project that engages men and boys in gender equality in order to overcome sexism, racism, homophobia and, indeed, any form of discriminatory behaviour. At the same time, our girls will also be given the opportunity to discuss feminism and gender stereotyping as well as the challenging issues raised in Everyone’s invited.

Visits by expert speakers covering a range of topics from bullying, LGBT+ inclusion, sexism and, of course, Relationships and Sex Education will further complement the huge breadth of insight already covered in our PSHE curriculum.

Above all, we will continue to do everything we can to equip our students with the skills they need to thrive in a complex and challenging modern world. As someone once said, “it shouldn’t hurt to be a child” – and definitely not while on our watch.   

Mr Nick Forsyth

Nick Forsyth is Head of Wellbeing at Kingston Grammar School and a Mental Health First Aid instructor.