Taking place in the third week of May, our inaugural Safeguarding Awareness Week is an opportunity to explore what it means to feel safe, particularly in light of the recent reports of the rise of sexual harassment in schools.
Since March 2021, thousands of testimonies from children and young people of peer-on-peer sexual harassment and abuse have been posted on the ‘Everyone’s Invited’ website. Many of these testimonies are linked to schools, colleges and universities.
Indeed, in June 2021, Ofsted concluded some shocking statistics surrounding the extent of sexual harassment on and offline in schools. The DfE has recently updated the Ofsted inspection handbook to account for this and to clarify Ofsted’s approach to harmful sexual behaviour.
During Safeguarding Awareness Week, we'll be sharing a range of tools and resources, as well as live webinars, hosted by our experienced safeguarding team and expert partners, to examine what it means to feel safe and how schools and colleges can put preventative measures in place to guard against sexual harassment and abuse.
We aim to inform educators of the factors that increase children’s potential vulnerability to abuse, and understand and address the barriers that could prevent a child or young person from reporting an incident.
Dawn Jotham, pastoral and safeguarding lead for Tes commented:
“Safeguarding is an ongoing priority in schools. Everyone in a school must act to protect those in their community. By running an awareness week, we are supporting schools as they continue in those endeavours throughout the academic year and beyond.
“We will use the week to give access to the very latest insight and analysis, to discuss with teaching and leadership staff on the ground how they are promoting safeguarding in their schools and deliver a range of tools for schools to use every day.”
Chief marketing officer, Tom Endean continued:
“When Tes acquired safeguarding experts, EduCare, we brought into our team not only a vast array of expert knowledge, but also a company whose mission was to empower people with the right knowledge and confidence to act; giving schools access to the very best tools to keep everyone safe. During Safeguarding Awareness Week, we are sharing that knowledge and encourage schools to sign up to ensure everyone in their community can benefit and improve their confidence.”
Sign up now to get updates about the week as more details are announced.