Written question WQ84780

I am deeply concerned by recent reports of sexual harassment in education settings. Any form of sexual harassment is totally unacceptable and will not be tolerated. All education settings in Wales have a legal duty to ensure that children have access to a safe learning environment; I expect these safeguarding responsibilities to be taken seriously.

It remains a cross-government priority to ensure that every child and young person is supported and that they are able to report any concerns they may have. In recognition that there are broader cultural challenges in dealing with this issue I continue to work with the Minister for Social Justice and the Deputy Minister for Social Services in relation to our ongoing response.

In June 2021, I commissioned Estyn to conduct a review into peer on peer sexual harassment in education settings. I welcome Estyn’s report which provides valuable information on the incidence of peer-on-peer sexual harassment and how schools’ safeguarding culture encourages and empowers pupils to stand up to their peers and report all forms of sexual harassment.

We will use the findings of Estyn’s report to inform our ongoing cross government response and work with stakeholders to deal with this important issue. This will include developing a multi-agency action plan which will include actions for Welsh Government and partners across a range of key themes.

Relationships and Sexuality Education (RSE) is a statutory requirement in the Curriculum for Wales framework and is mandatory for all learners. Schools and settings have an important role to play in creating safe and empowering environments in supporting learners’ rights to enjoy fulfilling, healthy and safe relationships throughout their lives.

RSE will be implemented in primary schools, maintained nursery schools, and non-maintained nursery settings from September 2022.

Within the new RSE statutory guidance, it is clear that the approach to RSE should be positive, protective and preventative, considering how learners might need to be supported to ‘have the knowledge to recognise all forms of discrimination, violence, abuse and neglect, including violence against women, domestic abuse and sexual violence and a link is included to a toolkit of resources to support schools and settings on this important issue. The statutory guidance also expands on and clarifies approaches to teaching and learning which supports this and Estyn’s review of peer on peer harassment in schools will further inform the development and delivery in schools.

The Estyn report is clear that there is a need for more robust reporting of instances of sexual harassment in education settings. We are already considering the changes we need to make to our anti-bullying guidance, Rights, Respect, Equality in relation to racial harassment and bullying in schools, in line with the Anti-Racist Wales Action Plan. We will also consider how this work can be effectively widened to include robust reporting, recording and data collection of peer on peer sexual harassment, and homophobic harassment and bullying.

Further to this, Estyn found that peer-on-peer sexual harassment is more prevalent online and outside school than in school. Through the Keeping safe online area of Hwb, we have developed resources to support practitioners to address this issue with learners in an age-appropriate way. Resources include the ‘Step up, speak up’ and ‘Just a joke?’ teaching toolkits, which are designed to support a whole school approach in understanding, preventing and responding to online sexual harassment. Guidance for education settings in responding to incidents of sharing nude and semi-nude images is also available, and an accompanying training module was developed and published in October 2021 to support schools to embed this guidance.

Welsh Government has always been clear about its ambition to end violence against women and girls. That is why the Welsh Government Programme for Government commits to strengthening the Violence against Women, Domestic Abuse and Sexual Violence (VAWDASV) Strategy to include a focus on violence against women in the street and workplace as well as the home in order to make Wales the safest place in Europe to be a woman. The revised VAWDASV National Strategy 2022-2026 is due to be published in the late spring 2022 and will run alongside the new RSE Code and guidance. Furthering our aim to ensure all children and young people have the ability to enjoy healthy, happy, respectful relationships now and in the future.

Any allegation that a teacher, staff member or volunteer has behaved in a way that has harmed, or may have harmed, a learner must be taken seriously and dealt with sensitively and promptly in a way that provides effective protection for the learner, and at the same time supports the person who is the subject of the allegation. All schools in Wales must operate a procedure for handling allegations of abuse that is consistent with Welsh Government guidance, Safeguarding children in education: handling allegations of abuse against teachers and other staff; and local guidance.

There is extensive guidance available to support education settings on preventing and responding to child sexual harassment and abuse, including our statutory guidance Keeping Learners Safe. In addition, we have several WG funded helplines established in Wales, specifically Childline Cymru, Live Fear Free and MEIC.