When considering Ofsted’s review of sexual abuse and harassment, it is clear that we may not be asking young people the right questions. One immediate action for schools must be to listen to our pupils. Elizabeth Rose looks at putting pupil voice at the heart of our safeguarding response


The recently published Ofsted review into sexual abuse in schools (Ofsted, 2021) has focused our attention on the endemic issue of sexual harassment and sexual violence faced by young people both in and outside of school.

Shocking statistics have been published as part of the review, which highlights how children often don’t report incidents because they have become so commonplace that they have been assimilated into the backdrop and context of young people’s lives.

Some schools will have been named directly in the testimonies shared on the Everyone’s Invited platform and others will not. At the time of writing, there are more than 51,000 and this outpouring of disclosure means that we must look again at how we are keeping children safe.

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