Every secondary school and alternative provision should have lead staff member dedicated to preventing violence against women and girls, a youth charity has said, after a poll found one in eight teachers report sexual assaults between pupils.
The Youth Endowment Fund said schools needed “specialists to stop the harm”.
A survey by Teacher Tapp for the charity found that 13 per cent reported a child sexually assaulting another child in the past term.
But 45 per cent of secondary teachers said they lacked confidence in teaching how to intervene if pupils witness a sexual assault.
Fifty-five per cent of secondary teachers also cited a lack of confidence or expertise as the main barrier to delivering PSHE and relationships, sex and health education. Thirty-one per cent never had training to teach the subjects.
And 70 per cent of teachers said they were not confident in identifying and delivering evidence-based interventions to prevent violence, while 27 per cent said they did not feel confident teaching pupils how to have healthy relationships.
The Labour government has pledged to halve violence against women and girls within a decade. The YEF said this required “clear, targeted action”.
Train a lead in every school
Government should invest £1 million to pilot a violence against women and girls lead training grant across 50 schools, colleges and alternative provision settings.
Modelled on existing grants for school mental health leads, this initiative “would fund the appointment and training of VAWG Leads to develop school-wide strategies, improve RSHE lessons, bring in specialist external providers and train other staff members”.
£35 million should then be spent to scale up the initiative if it shows success.
This “could reach all secondary schools and colleges, and 500 AP settings in England”.
And £100 million should be spent over five years to deliver evidence-based violence reduction programmes for children most at risk.
This “could involve extending the Department for Education’s SAFE Taskforces or providing targeted funding” to schools in areas with the highest levels of violence.
Pupil premium spending guidance should be updated to “explicitly encourage schools to invest in evidence-based violence reduction strategies”.
Jon Yates, CEO of the YEF and a former DfE adviser, said: “Over the past decade, schools have led the charge in breaking down the stigma around mental health and providing crucial support for young people.
“With the right resources, training and leadership, they can have a similar transformative impact in tackling violence against women and girls.”
He said Netflix’s Adolescence series – which charted the aftermath of the murder of a girl by a boy she attended school with – had “shone a much-needed spotlight on the toxic influences boys are growing up with.
“It’s time to act. Research shows that lessons on healthy relationships can make a real difference. The Labour government has the opportunity to make a bold statement that violence against women and girls will not be tolerated.”
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