Ofsted Review of Sexual Abuse in Schools and Colleges

Lord Lucas Excerpts

Thursday 17th June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

My Lords, in relation to the Keeping Children Safe in Education guidance I have outlined, it was changed fundamentally in, I think, 2014 to become a framework document so that schools and institutions know their duties and can put in place the policies they need for their particular setting. There are different risks in a rural primary school from those in a busy secondary school in an urban setting. It will be up to schools to frame particular lessons so that the instances the noble Lord outlined can take place. However, I recognise that there are specific issues related to PE and music lessons, particularly given the dynamic in specialist institutions. The noble Lord will probably be aware that that was a concern of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, which had to investigate whether it was something to do with that particular environment. However, Keeping Children Safe in Education gives all schools the framework to put in place for their setting and for particular subjects, so that they can work out how to keep children safe.

[Lord Lucas (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I declare my interest as editor of The Good Schools Guide. A good pastoral system is effective and open, particularly with regard to communication within the school, so that everyone feels comfortable about talking to teachers and pupils alike. It is effective and open about taking action when something goes wrong so that everyone knows what has happened, what is being done and how the matter is to be resolved. It is also effective and open in its liaison with parents and outside agencies so that the whole problem is treated, not just the little local bit which has appeared within the school.

The Government can make a substantial difference in this regard by requiring Ofsted and the Office for Students to keep their eyes open. We will come back to that in one of my amendments to the skills Bill. That will enable schools to know that this issue is going to be looked at, so they will keep it at the top of the list of things they are trying to do. They will know that this is something that cannot be neglected. As the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, said, this has been going on for a very long time, but it has just been ignored or accepted as something that it is hard to talk about. A real opportunity has been provided by the Everyone’s Invited website. This is a moment when we can change things and we should take advantage of that.

The Government also need to provide a structure for sharing best practice because it is really quite hard to get this right on your own. A school needs to have the confidence to reject bad advice. Indeed, that is needed at university as well. Look at all the problems that universities have had in dealing with students with mental health issues and the knots they have tied themselves in because they have not understood what the correct procedures are when a student is in severe distress.

A number of charities are circulating material to schools that is actively against involving parents and actively against going to outside safeguarding agencies, as well as being greatly biased against girls in terms of their relationships with their fellow pupils. This sort of problem needs to be dealt with by the Government, because only the Government can provide that security of reaction and the confidence that you are doing something right. You cannot ask schools, with all the pressures on them, to try to discern the difference between good and bad advice coming at them from charities and pressure groups. I hope my noble friend will confirm my reading of the Statement: that the Government will be doing just that.

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

My Lords, on the cultural points my noble friend references, schools are reflecting wider society so he is right that we need to recognise that there is a role for everyone. The guidance is really clear that safeguarding in a school is everyone’s responsibility. Everyone should be given chapter 1 of KCS and they all should read it, and that means the cleaner and the caterers as well as the teaching staff. There should be an environment within a school where a young person can share with any appropriate adult, and they should know what their obligations are. The guidance is really clear that school staff—whoever they are—should never assume that something has already been reported and it is someone else’s responsibility.

Schools know that they are going to be inspected on this. One of the four pillars of the Ofsted 2019 framework is very clearly around safeguarding. Each pillar stands and is assessed separately, so if you are inadequate for safeguarding you will fail an Ofsted inspection regardless of your educational performance. That is really important for those schools, some of which were named by Everyone’s Invited, that have very good educational records and yet have been found by reports on Everyone’s Invited to be lacking in terms of culture, particularly in respect of girls.

As Minister for the Schools System, I can say that sharing best practice is what the multi-academy trust system is all about. It enables groups of schools to have robust safeguarding training and safeguarding leads that share best practice and concerns regarding pupils as they move from one phase of education to another.