Guidance published on dealing with ‘sexting’ in schools

In 2010, the government established the UK Council for Child Internet Safety (UKCCIS) to discuss and take action on topical issues concerning children’s use of the internet.

More on UKCCIS can be found online here: https://www.gov.uk/government/groups/uk-council-for-child-internet-safety-ukccis

In August 2016 UKCCIS published new non-statutory guidance for schools on responding to incidents of ‘sexting’.  The guidance covers areas such as:

• Responding to disclosures
• Handling devices and imagery
• Risk-assessing situations
• Involving other agencies
• Preventative education
• Working with parents
• Reporting imagery to providers

The guidance on sexting is non-statutory, but is designed to be read alongside the Department for Education’s statutory safeguarding guidance, Keeping Children Safe in Education, and its non-statutory advice on Searching, Screening and Confiscation.

The guidance defines sexting on page 5 as "youth-produced sexual imagery", i.e. young people sharing sexual photographs or videos that they or another young person have created of themselves.

A guidance document for schools on sexting, developed by organisations including Kent County Council and the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP) features advice on addressing sexting in school policies:

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Example policies from primary schools

Croxteth Primary School in Liverpool includes information about peer-to-peer abuse, including sexting, on pages 12-13 of its safeguarding policy.

Halstow Primary School has an e-safety policy that includes information about various e-safety issues, including sexting (see page 9).

Example policies from secondary schools

John Port School in Derbyshire has a sexting policy that relays guidance on dealing with incidents, including how to limit the negative impact of incidents and prevent them from occurring in future.

Glenthorne High School has an anti-sexting policy which forms part of its safeguarding policy, and is also referenced in its behaviour and e-safety policies.

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Guidance for Young People

As part of their #Be Cyber Smart campaign, Warwickshire Police have put together some guidance for young people on the use of social media and 'sexting' activities. We would encourage schools to promote this within school and refer young people to the website for advice and guidance: https://www.warwickshire.police.uk/article/10484/Sexting-Think-twice

More information about online safety can also be found at:

https://www.getsafeonline.org/

 

Anti-bullying and childhood obesity initiatives

Thousands more children to benefit from anti-bullying app

£4.4 million government fund backs projects including tootoot app to let children use screenshots of online abuse to report bullying.

Full details available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/thousands-more-children-to-benefit-from-anti-bullying-app

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Childhood obesity: a plan for action

The government’s plan for action to significantly reduce childhood obesity by supporting healthier choices was published on 18 August 2016.

More information available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/childhood-obesity-a-plan-for-action

Under the plan there will be:

• A requirement for all primary schools to provide at least 30 minutes of physical activity every day for pupils through, for example, active breaktimes, PE lessons, extra-curricular clubs and active lessons
• An interactive online tool produced to help schools plan the daily half hour of physical activity
• The introduction of a voluntary ‘healthy schools rating scheme’. The rating criteria will be decided after consultation with schools and experts and will form part of Ofsted inspections being introduced from September 2017
• Further guidance from Public Health England for primary schools to help them to understand which interventions work
• An annual competition to recognise the schools running the best healthy lifestyle projects

Other initiatives announced in the childhood obesity strategy include:

• An update to the school food standards to reflect new dietary recommendations, and a campaign to get all academies to sign up to the standards
• Revised menus and physical activity guidelines for the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS)
• New advice for schools to be published for 2017/18 on how to work with school nurses and health professionals to help pupils develop healthier lifestyles
• Training for school nurses on influencing behaviour change and initiating difficult conversations about health and wellbeing
• Access to a co-ordinated offer of high quality sport and physical activity programmes for every primary school from September 2017
• Targets to increase the number of children walking to school, and continuing support for the bikeability cycle training scheme for children
• A thematic review, to be conducted by Ofsted in 2017, on obesity, healthy eating and physical activity in schools, to find examples of good practice and recommendations on what more schools can do

 

CPS Violence against Women and Girls crime report 2015-16

In March 2016, the government launched a strategy to end Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG). The strategy introduced new offences to tackle stalking and for forcing someone to marry against their will. There were also new offences for coercive and controlling behaviour, and new protection orders for domestic violence, sexual violence and female genital mutilation.

The latest Violence against Women and Girls crime report from the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) for 2015-16 covers many of these strands and reflects some positive figures in terms of the number of convictions for offences against women and girls.

Schools are perfectly placed to help to reduce these figures further in the future by working with children and young people to help them understand more about healthy relationships.  The organisations featured in this issue of the newsletter all offer support to schools in promoting well being and keeping children and young people safe.

Headlines

• CPS are prosecuting and convicting more defendants of domestic abuse, rape, sexual offences and child sexual abuse than ever before.

• In 2015/16 there were more than 8,500 convictions for VAWG crimes, an increase from 73.5% in 2014/15 to 74.2% in 2015-16.

• There was the highest volume of prosecutions ever for domestic abuse with more than 75,000 convictions with a 74.5% conviction rate (73.9% conviction rate in 2014-15).

• There were more than 200 so-called revenge pornography prosecutions since the new legislation introduced in April 2015, which is indicative of the growing number of offences occurring through social media.

• By March 2016 there were already 5 successful prosecutions for the offence of using controlling or coercive behaviour (introduced in December 2015).

• The CPS conviction rate for rape rose to 57.9% from 56.9% in 2014-15. More than 4,600 defendants were prosecuted for rape offences with convictions being secured in 2,689 of these – the highest volumes ever for some of the most complex cases handled by the CPS.

• There was an increase of almost 17% in the number of convictions for child sexual abuse, equating to 4,643 convictions in 2015-16 with a conviction rate of 74.7%.

 

Warwickshire’s conviction rates are higher than the national for all four of the categories below:

• VAWG - Warwickshire 79.5% (622 convictions); National 74.2% (87,275)

• Domestic Abuse – Warwickshire 79.4% (527 convictions); National 74.5% (75,235)

• Rape – Warwickshire 69% (20 convictions); National 57.9% (2,689)

• Sexual Offences – Warwickshire 84.3% (75 convictions); National 78.0% (9,351)

 

Consultation on creating “more good school places”

On 12 September 2016, the Department for Education (DfE) launched a consultation on proposals to create "more good school places".

The proposals include:

• Allowing existing selective schools to expand, and new selective schools to open, while ensuring they support non-selective schools
• Allowing new faith free schools to select up to 100% of their pupils based on their faith, while ensuring they include pupils from different backgrounds
• Expecting independent schools to support existing state schools, open new state schools or offer funded places to children whose families cannot afford to pay fees
• Asking universities to commit to sponsoring or setting up new schools in exchange for being able to charge higher fees

The DfE has published a consultation document with more information on the proposals.

The consultation closes on 12 December 2016.