Sexual Harassment and Violence in Schools

Layla Moran Excerpts

Thursday 2nd November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)]

As others have done, I thank the House for debating this extraordinarily important issue. I have been a secondary school teacher all my adult life, and the change that we have seen in young people’s day-to-day interactions over time has caused me deep concern, on a professional level, for several years. That is particularly true of the rise in online bullying, which is linked to the harrowing subject that we are discussing.

The statistics in the Select Committee’s excellent report make awful reading, but it is terrifying to think that this is just the tip of the iceberg. I completely agree with the sensible recommendations on improving child safeguarding, which include rewriting the Government guidance and allowing Ofsted to inspect how well schools are dealing with sexual harassment. Those measures are necessary to protect children from abuse, but they do not address how to prevent people from being abusive in the first place. I especially endorse the report’s recommendation that all children must be given personal, social and health education that includes sex and relationships.

I used to pride myself on being an accessible teacher. “Don’t smile before Christmas” did not last even an hour for me on the first day of school. I welcomed groups of teenagers hanging out in my classroom and chatting while doing homework and very often asking for help with their very personal problems. But I always called out inappropriate banter. I taught sex education in my role as a science teacher and PSHE as a head of year. In the school I worked at, we used to ask the 13 and 14-year-olds—my favourite age group, I should add—to put anonymous questions into a hat, and we would then draw them out over the course of weeks to talk about them. The questions were extraordinary at exposing how wide-ranging young people’s views of the world are at that age. I used to find myself shocked at both what they knew—as has been alluded to, the sort of porn and destructive relationships that they thought were normal—and what they did not know. Most harrowing was the fact that so many of them did not know when it was okay to say no.

The conversations I had, with younger girls especially, unsurprisingly centred on their relationships and especially on sex. Some were confident, and some very insecure. We talked about consent and mutual respect. We would teach them to try to see things from other perspectives and never to assume that someone else was thinking the same thing as they were. Many reported that it was really hard to talk to their parents about such things, and they all appreciated the fact that we had helped to create a safe space where they could talk about what they wanted.

I am sorry to say that, sadly, not all schools are able to do that, and I recognise how lucky I have been to work in schools that do. The fact is that, as has been mentioned, sex education in England is unfit for purpose. It is part of the national curriculum, but the academies and free schools programme means that 70% of schools do not have to teach it. Government guidelines have not been updated since 2000 and are unfit for the digital age, failing completely to address issues such as online pornography, LGBT+ relationships and the importance of consent.

That is not to say that schools do not see the value of PSHE or do not want to teach it, but school funding pressures mean that teachers have more and more subject contact time, leaving less and less time to have informal pastoral conversations. I should add that not all teachers are comfortable leading PSHE and difficult conversations, and that the right training is critical. The fact is that the picture is far too much of a patchwork and not at all well enough resourced.

The academies programme means that parents have no minimum guarantees about what their child will be taught, and that is why I have been campaigning for a minimum curriculum entitlement—a slimmed-down curriculum—that all state schools, no matter what type, would have to teach. That would include not just sex and relationships education, but all aspects of PSHE as well as citizenship and financial education.

I was heartened to see MPs from all parties join forces to ensure that the Government changed the law, so that sex education will—eventually—become compulsory for all secondary schools. However, I echo the calls from across the House for the Government to move faster. They have not brought the new law into force. We were told that the first students would study the new sex education curriculum in September 2019, but as we have already heard, we need the consultation process to start and move quickly. While they are at it, the Government should also make the other aspects of PSHE compulsory.

We have a duty of care to our next generation so that they do not make the same mistakes as our own. I also echo what others have said in the Chamber about how disheartened we have felt this week. Children deserve to flourish, and to know what it means to respect their peers and be able to enjoy healthy relationships, not ones characterised by misogyny and exploitation. We owe it to them to do much better.