Bristol School Crime – How Safe is Your Child’s School?

When it comes to choosing a school, parents usually resort to a range of traditional methods for making their selection.

League tables, Ofsted, Sats and Progress 8 are all a bewildering array of measuring the success of a school. For some parents, it will be the strength of a good Senco and Send support. For others, it will be all about the aspirational value of former private schools turned academies. Ultimately, the choice will come down to gut instinct and admissions criteria.

Schools do like to drive a good PR campaign and fly the flag – literally – when Ofsted somehow calculates their findings to be good or outstanding. Others march firmly down the business marketing route, with some Bristol academies even dangling free keyrings and drawstring bags on open evenings.

But is there another way that parents could check out the background of a school which they may not have previously considered.

No headteacher or governing body is going to be reeling out their crime statistics during the open day speech, but it would be naive to assume that Bristol schools are crime free places. They are not. Parents can get an insight into the nature of crimes committed at Bristol schools by going through statistics on the police crime map.

In January this year, the Independent reported that hate crime numbers in schools and colleges had risen by 62 per cent in one year.

They found that police had recorded 919 crimes in total, with 71 per cent of those related to race and ethnicity.

Religious or belief hate crimes came at 9 per cent, as did sexual orientation. Disability hate crimes accounted for 10 per cent and transgender one per cent. The recorded crimes either took place on school grounds or as a child was moving into or out of school.

Then there is sexual assault and harassment. Department for Education (DOE) advice regarding sexual assault or sexual harassment at school says that it can occur between two children of any sex as well as through groups of children sexually harassing or assaulting a single child or group of children.

Guidance says that it is important that all victims are taken serious and offered appropriate support. Schools should create an environment where sexual violence or harassment is not acceptable and ‘banter’ should not be dismissed.

The DOE also states that children with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) are especially vulnerable, as are disabled and deaf children.

Children who are Lesbian, Gay, Bi, or Trans (LGBT) are another vulnerable group. Classmates who are not even LGBT but targeted as such can be just as vulnerable and sexual harassment they receive counts.

Sexual violence in schools includes rape, assault by penetration and intentionally touching another person sexually without consent

Sexual harassment happens online and offline and includes sexual comments, lewd comments, sexual remarks about clothes or appearance, sexual jokes, or physical behaviour including unwanted contact. Online harassment includes the sharing of sexual images and videos, threats and coercion.

But how common is sexual violence or harassment in UK schools? In 2015, BBC research issued Freedom of Information requests to all UK police forces. Results showed there were more than 5,500 alleged sex crimes in UK schools that were reported to the police in the academic years 2012 to 2015.

A 4000 of these were physical sexual assaults and more than 600 were rapes. Victims and suspects were found to be as young as five years of age.

Much of the research and statistics available focuses on girls being the victim. Whilst they are more likely to be at risk, boys can also be the target of sexual abuse and harassment both in primary school and secondary school.

By navigating the police crime map, you can find out about the type of crimes that are committed in Bristol schools. These range from bicycle theft to really serious sexual assault and violent offences.

www.police.uk

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