CYP Now - Sexual harassment among primary school pupils prompts call for ‘proactive’ RSE

An increase in "distressing" reports about sexual harassment among primary school pupils has prompted calls for “proactive” relationships and sex education (RSE) for younger children.

Young people say relationships and sex education is taught too late. Picture: Adobe Stock

In a blog for CYP Now, Lisa Handy, programme and training manager for RSE at Coram Life Education, says “distressed teachers feel under-equipped to deal with the increasingly urgent issues of misogyny, sexism and sexual harassment in schools”.

Research from the Everyone’s Invited campaign shows that 14 per cent of testimonies from 50,000 young people who have experienced peer-on-peer sexual harassment and abuse relate to primary schools, Handy notes.

“There is an urgent need for schools to be proactive in preventing sexual harassment through an age-appropriate RSE curriculum at an earlier stage,” she adds.

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