Sexual harassment of female school staff: UNISON Cymru response

The issue of safety of school support staff and concerns about their security on school premises is very relevant. The Senedd Children, Young People and Education Committee’s inquiry into sexual harassment of female staff sits alongside the work UNISON has been involved in on violence and aggression faced by teaching and classroom assistants in across the UK.

We also wanted to support the Committee’s investigations by providing detailed feedback on how support staff in Wales feel about these issues and surveyed our members in October.

A survey of UNISON members found that violence and abuse are widespread in schools. Many staff experience verbal and physical attacks on a regular basis and feel unsupported by management or lack adequate training.  

The survey provided evidence that school support staff are overwhelming worried about violent behaviour in their job in schools, are frequently verbally abused and violent incidents and injuries to staff are commonplace, yet staff do not feel supported by their headteachers and nor have many been given training on how to deal with violent situations.

School support staff suffering sexual harassment said they would feel much more confident about reporting this to their headteacher and more confident that it would be dealt with appropriately, than when a violent incident occurs.

The consequences of violent pupil behaviour can be grave for the mental and physical health of support staff. Worry is aggravated because they feel unsupported and many schools don’t have protocols for dealing with aggressive children or don’t make support staff aware of them or provide training to de-escalate situations and protect themselves.

Schools must have robust policies around violence and sexual harassment of staff and make pupils and colleagues aware that this will not be tolerated in any way.
In particular, UNISON makes three urgent recommendations: 

• improve the reporting process around attacks;
• provide staff with medical and psychological support; and
• ensure they don’t have to continue working with the young person who’s just assaulted/harassed them.