Annual Certificate in Understanding Sexual Harassment and Sexual Violence for School Governors

Course Duration: 170 minutes (approx.)

It is important that governors have a good understanding of sexual harassment and sexual violence so that they can provide the right level of support and challenge for school leaders and DSLs, identify early signs of peer-on-peer abuse and consistency uphold standards in their responses to sexual harassment and online sexual abuse.

This Essential CPD course provides you with the core content you need to understand your statutory safeguarding requirements around sexual harassment and sexual violence in schools.

Split into bite-sized modules, the training has been designed to provide maximum learning potential in the leanest, most cost-effective and most time-efficient manner. It has been produced in high-quality remote video CPD format which is accessible on any device, any time, anywhere.

Developed by Lorna Ponambalum, safeguarding expert and senior leadership education professional, the course is split into five modules. The course consists of learning through video modules, completion of tasks, further reading and viewing external resources. Please consider this when planning and allocating your time. To successfully understand and achieve the objectives from the course, learners are expected to engage in all aspects of the learning process and complete all relevant activities to ensure they can successfully apply the knowledge and skills they have gained in their own setting.

Designed in line with the following policies:

• Keeping children safe in education
• Sexual violence and sexual harassment between children in schools and colleges
• Sharing Nudes and Semi-Nudes: Advice for Education Settings Working with Children and Young People

Learning outcomes

• Recognising your statutory requirements and legal duties to protect children from sexual violence and sexual harassment.
• Understanding how to implement effective preventative strategies to discourage incidents of sexual abuse at school.
• Recognising how to create a whole-school safeguarding approach to support students who have experienced or are experiencing sexual violence or sexual harassment.
• Identifying best practice procedures for handling disclosures and ensuring the correct steps are followed to ensure each report is treated fairly.
• Understanding what the various types of sexual violence and sexual harassment are and how to identify them.

Modules

Module 1: What is meant by sexual violence and sexual harassment?

Module one explores the evidence surrounding sexual violence and sexual harassment, the definitions of sexual violence and sexual harassment and what is meant by harmful sexual behaviour.

Module 2: What is the legislation and guidance?

Module two will discuss what the statutory guidance and legislation is relating to sexual violence and sexual harassment and consider the principles of contextual safeguarding.

Module 3: How to respond to sexual violence and sexual harassment

Module three looks at how to respond to disclosures, case studies relating to harmful sexual behaviour and what actions to take on the discovery of youth-produced sexual imagery (sexting).

Module 4: How to offer support and create a safe environment

Module four explores school’s safeguarding duties, the implementation of successful preventative strategies and how to support a whole-school ethos which doesn’t tolerate any form or sexual violence or harassment.

Module 5: What is the role of governors?

Module five will look at the role of governing bodies and proprietors in developing a whole school culture which safeguards children against sexual harassment and sexual violence.