No Mushrooms Please....

“No Mushrooms Please”

Developing a school culture that challenges youth violence and exploitation

I don’t like mushrooms - for me they are to be avoided on any plate.?

In 2018 I wrote a blog, ‘What Did You Eat For Breakfast?’, in which I challenged schools to change their culture around youth violence and gang exploitation. Now weekly media headlines, the latest county lines exposure, another published report or the latest social media click have made us as a society desensitised to these ongoing issues. There is also the daily, unreported exploitation and heart ache of so many destroyed families.

For many (no most) schools these issues remain best avoided. A few look to tackle the issues of violence and exploitation and raise awareness head on, as part of a wider and sustained school initiative. Others invite one of the increasing number of practitioners to present awareness assemblies and share their testimonies (and I commend each and every one of these practitioners) alongside the latest police initiative or community campaign.?

But I challenge that too many schools are failing their pupils and their communities by overlooking these issues. For others, their response represents little more than tokenism - a short term, easy to implement initiative that serves little more than a box ticked. I have had conversations with school leaders who laud over their “gang awareness” work, which in reality constitutes little more than an 20 minute awareness presentation. Now, I know that 20 minutes to unpack the grooming line, introduce county lines, highlight the realities, challenge the social media narrative and exemplify the impacts and consequences, whilst contextualising this to the local area, is going some! Meanwhile, staff are missing early indicators that could flag grooming and exploitation.

This leads me to question, as a standalone strategy, how much impact does a one off assembly or presentation actually have on reducing violence, grooming and exploitation of children? Yes, granted for some a strong message will hit home, but surely if it was this straightforward, we would have cracked these issues by now? Furthermore, I would also question how much understanding do those in education - those who would have the contextual knowledge around the child to know the early risk factors and who have the daily contact (35+ hours per week) to spot the indicators - actually have to support as part of any legacy understanding or support.

To be clear, I’m not advocating against using assemblies and presentations to raise awareness (in fact would advocate every school uses these to raise awareness amongst their school community) but to really impact and influence behaviour this needs to be part of a sustained and embedded agenda that safeguards children and results in a systematic cultural shift within schools.?

Only last month, my daughter’s school had a County Lines Awareness Week in which they shared a police flier with parents on county lines and pupils received a police assembly on this. I applaud both the school and police for this initiative (and wish more schools would open the door to further work around this) but I can’t help feel that to be really impactful further work has to be needed. For example, within society most parents, and within education most teachers and support staff, have a very limited knowledge and understanding about these issues, and as such any cultural shift within a school I would suggest will not occur without a shared understanding of the very issues you are trying to embed. Knowing that it was the same in every school across the City, I have since contacted the schools, outlined my education background and cultural competency around the issues and offered to deliver for free safeguarding sessions to staff and / or parents - based on Beyond The Gate - to develop their knowledge and understanding. Again, this won’t crack the issue, but will add a further layer to this initiative and provide a platform for further discussion, training and development.?

Time will tell if the schools engage in this, but it did throw me back to a comment made to me several years ago by a somewhat vocal CEO of a MAT I was presenting ‘Beyond The Gate’ to. Having missed the vast majority of the presentation, he stood up at the end and announced (I paraphrase)?“this is all very well-meaning but my priority is to get my boys the GCSEs to get them in to Sixth Form college. This is not on our agenda.”?(I’ll overlook that it was on his safeguarding lead agenda who had invited me in to speak.) 18 months later one of his “boys” never made it to Sixth Form - he was stabbed and killed outside the school gate. I am not saying that this was due to any failings from the school, but what I am saying is that it took the realities of violence and exploitation arriving at that school gate to act as a catalyst for change and engagement across that MAT.?

I read today - and this is what prompted this blog - a news reporting headlining “It’s like ordering a pizza. Children as young as 9 sucked in to drug dealing and violence.”?On reading the article I see that a further report has been realised today and once again well placed and informed practitioners continue to call for change. Will this have any impact? I doubt it.

For me, it is time now for education policy makers to cut to the chase. How…

-Use KCSIE and the Ofsted frameworks (yeap utilising Ofsted!) to drive a robust and embedded response further on to school agenda

-Utilise teacher training to ensure future ECTs and school leaders have the basic understanding to recognise risk factors and spot the indicators that is missing from so many in education?

And to those in schools flinching - I bring you back to my CEO colleague….?

It is time now for school leaders to act before it is too late and for education to move beyond the political strap lines, the tick box tokenism, the unconscious prejudice, and the pre-conceived narrative and really address the need for deep rooted systematic cultural change within our schools to safeguard our children. As I wrote in my blog What Did You Eat For Breakfast?:

“Our students matter. My plea to those in education – if you haven’t done so already, change your school culture and students too will “get the job done in the right way”. Trust in them, when empowered with the right knowledge and understanding to do this.?Don’t change your culture, and risk them becoming another statistic….”

Time to put what is easiest avoided back on the plate.

#schools #educationalleadership #exploitation #safeguarding #countylines #educhat #CSE #CCE #gangs #sltchat #education