Students in many schools, including ours, were affected by the murder of Sarah Everard. This horrific event was a societal earthquake which continues to send shockwaves across the country. At JCG, and in many schools across the UK, it unlocked pent-up emotion, frustration and anger resulting in courageous anonymous testimonies ranging from low level to the most serious harassment.

Our students called out cultures of normalised everyday sexual harassment and sought to show that ‘banter’ is not harmless but the foundation of a culture in which children get hurt and are at risk of harm. They highlighted what is meant by the expression ‘Rape Culture’ and the continuum on which sits coercive control and domestic violence.

These testimonies have caused an intense discussion amongst all those involved in education about the underlying issue. The research shows that the problem is ingrained in society at all ages, affecting pupils and students from, as OfSted found, every school across the UK. The 2017 National Education Union report in collaboration with Feminista found that over a quarter of girls at a mixed sex school had experienced unwanted touching of a sexual nature at school. In a June 2020 report from the University of Bedfordshire entitled Beyond Referrals, 73% of students surveyed indicated that sexual/sexist name calling occurred in school; 55% said that rumours circulated about students' sexual activity; 36% reported that sexual harassment had taken place.

Soma Sara, the Founder of Everyone’s Invited, has expressed disappointment in the way the public debate focused on a small number of private schools. This does a serious injustice to the problem and those who have been affected from everywhere else.

Louise Read, Chair of Governors stated, 'The review confirms the bravery of our students; they did the right thing. It also confirms how our leadership responded, how they listened, gained our students’ trust and supported them. The report also provides important learning points which we fully accept so that we are even better placed to support our students in future.'

Carl Howarth, Principal, stated, 'We welcome the review into how we managed the anonymous testimonies of our students’ experiences. This is an important report which will shape the drafting of much needed policy to assist all schools and agencies. The report highlights the dilemma faced by students and their schools. Schools need to create a safe space where students can come forward and share their experiences. The problem is the word ‘safe’. Schools and statutory agencies cannot promise confidentiality and have a duty to make onward referral to other agencies. However, ‘safe’ in the eyes of students often means precisely the reverse. Their decision to use anonymity gave our students the safe space to share their experiences. It is hoped that this review will help find a solution to this dilemma.'

A JCG student stated, 'The fact that our testimonies were anonymous was important to us as it created a secure space for us to say what happens. We felt proud that our peers had the ability to expose a culture of harassment and how it impacts on our daily lives. We are grateful for being taken seriously and felt continually listened to and supported. We feel that the work that we have been involved in will lead to a cultural shift; regardless of whether challenging typical ideologies has tested our resilience. While this report is about how our testimonies were received, we hope it will give confidence to other young women to share their stories. However, the focus should not be on the testimonies of women and girls but on male violence and the root cause of misogyny in society.'

Significant work has been done since March. This work has been shaped through discussion with our students and in partnership with Victoria College and our parents; it is ongoing to bring about a substantial and sustainable cultural change across our two schools. This work is designed to build a young person’s conscience around their own individual and collective behaviour, to embed within our schools a code of conduct and to build the resilience of our young people to identify, resist and disclose conduct that breaches that code.

These are societal issues and the key to building a better society does not rest solely at the door of schools. Nor are these issues capable of being resolved with a quick fix. It is incumbent on everyone to work together to call out and challenge misogyny, harassment and prejudice in whatever form it takes.