What action is the Minister taking to reduce peer-on-peer sexual assault in schools?
It is a government priority to ensure every child and young person is supported and they are able to report any concerns they may have. I continue to work with the Minister for Social Justice and the Deputy Minister for Social Services in relation to this.
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 funded several helplines: Childline Cymru, Live Fear Free and MEIC.
Relationships and Sexuality Education (RSE) is a statutory requirement in the Curriculum for Wales framework and has a positive and protective role in learners’ education.
RSE is intended to help children to develop healthy relationships and behaviours with their friends and families, based on kindness, empathy and respect. This is important for them to develop as ‘healthy, confident individuals’ with positive social, emotional and mental well-being.
RSE is also intended to keep children safe and to protect their well-being. This is critical as technology and society continue to change rapidly. RSE helps children recognise relationships and situations that might put them at risk of harm. It can support all children with what they need to know and what to do to keep safe and how to seek help.
In addition to the curriculum requirements, we are also developing guidance for education settings about how to ensure their environment and culture is free from damaging and limiting ideas around gender roles. This will set out an approach where children and young people are listened to and empowered to call out unacceptable behaviours. It will help ensure no child or young people faces discrimination on the basis of gender or sexuality. This whole-setting approach will cover a wide range of settings, including primary and secondary settings, Special Educational Needs settings and Education Other Than at School (EOTAS) settings.
We know peer-on-peer sexual harassment is not limited to secondary schools and understanding how this is experienced at different ages is important to ensure we respond with appropriate and tailored interventions.
We have commissioned a thematic review by Estyn in the further education sector, which is due to report in spring 2023. We are committed to using Estyn’s recommendations to underpin a specific programme of work to tackle sexual harassment in further education and have allocated funding for a collaborative college-led project to develop shared resources, research and professional learning.
We also believe it would be beneficial to have a greater understanding about children's experiences of gender-based bullying or sexual harassment in primary settings. We are currently considering the scope of this review.
The Estyn review into peer-on-peer sexual harassment in secondary schools found it is more prevalent online and outside school than in school. Through the Keeping Safe Online area of Hwb, we have developed resources to equip practitioners to educate and support learners with this issue. Following the publication of guidance for education settings in responding to incidents of sharing nude and semi-nude images, a short training module to support schools to embed this guidance was published – we encourage senior leaders in all schools to undertake this training.
We are also establishing a children and young people’s advisory panel for digital resilience. Panel members will be invited to share their online experiences and provide opinions and insight to shape and inform the direction of our work. All messaging/visual content will be tested with children and young people.
We published our five-year VAWDASV National Strategy last year. One of its aims is to increase awareness in children, young people and adults of the importance of safe, equal and healthy relationships and empowering them to make positive personal choices.
We are also working with a range of stakeholders, including the police to develop a multi-agency peer-on-peer sexual harassment action plan. It will outline the actions to be taken by Welsh Government and partners to tackle this in education settings. We aim to publish the action plan during the autumn term.
We recognise the need to empower children and young people to inform our work, and their voices and lived experiences must be integral to everything we do. This will be at the heart of all our work in this space.