COMMENT
WITH RESPECT Stamford’s visionary Learning for Life curriculum is leading the way in conversations around consent and relationships, writes KENDAL MILLS
T
he recent allegations of historic peer-on-peer sexual harassment and abuse by students at thousands of schools, colleges and universities rocked the education world, and the harrowing accounts on the Everyone’s Invited website made for difficult reading. As schools, we had to respond without any hint of defensiveness or by appearing to underplay the problem. The media-coined term ‘rape culture’, was initially applied to ‘private’ schools and tended to be linked to words like ‘elitism’ and ‘entitlement’. That was unhelpful and somewhat misleading because it generated a caricature of the issue. The thousands of allegations made by current and former students were varied – degrading language used by male students towards female students, body-shaming, indecent postings online, nonconsensual sexual touching and, in extreme cases, rape – so our response to that complex range of transgressions needed to be sure-footed enough to address them all in a variety of ways.
gaming sessions. In doing so, we draw on the work done in year seven on respectful relationships and extend that into their online lives – which they often perceive as being totally separate from ‘real life’. This continues through to year 13. Teaching boys about consent and the distinction between consensual and nonconsensual sexual activity can be daunting, and delivering such critically important messages in the right way needs clear thinking and a great deal of sensitivity. After all, we’re involving ourselves in very intimate aspects of young people’s lives, and the topic is awkward for many of them. While colleagues are happy to engage with the topic in our Learning for Life lessons, we do make use of external facilitators who possess greater expertise and whom students feel they can ask questions of that they might not wish to ask a teacher or tutor. We’re fortunate to have access to a local organisation called The Conversation (theconversationstamford.co.uk) whose practitioners run workshops on healthy
Kendal Mills is Deputy Head (Pastoral) at Stamford School, Lincolnshire
TEACHING BOYS ABOUT the distinction between consensual and nonconsensual sexual activity CAN BE DAUNTING, AND DELIVERING SUCH CRITICALLY IMPORTANT MESSAGES IN THE RIGHT WAY NEEDS CLEAR THINKING AND A GREAT DEAL OF SENSITIVITY Although it only became statutory from September 2020, Stamford School has been delivering a robust and relevant Relationships & Sex Education (RSE) curriculum for many years. We’ve always believed that part of Personal, Social and Health Education (PSHE) – which we now call Learning for Life – to be of central importance, as it touches on so many aspects of young people’s lives and is territory that they, by their own admission, find difficult to negotiate. In year seven – ages 11 and 12 – our focus is very firmly on respectful relationships of all kinds and incorporates a strong anti-bullying message. In year eight, we explore online behaviour because that tends to be the age when boys and girls begin to get drawn into some of the more unsavoury aspects of the online world such as the sending of indecent images of one another and writing offensive messages in group chats or during online
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relationships, consent, e-safety (aptly dubbed ‘cyber wisdom’) and the corrosive impact of online pornography on the developing male brain. Similarly the Good Lad Initiative, a Londonbased charity, provides excellent advice designed to encourage boys and young men to tackle the root causes of gender inequality, challenge toxic masculinity, and teach them to grow up to become respectful, sensitive men who understand that consent lies at the heart of all relationships. In the months following the whistleblowing of Everyone’s Invited and other online platforms, it has become clear that boys of all ages are genuinely worried about those boundaries and are asking open and probing questions. The fact that such questions are being asked is a positive sign, and should be seen as an expression of desire for change. It’s up to schools, colleges and universities to continue to lead that change.
