Bunbury Senior High School teachers’ plea for help dealing with students’ shocking sexual harassment, threats

Teachers from a South West school are calling on their union and the Education Department for help in dealing with the “shocking” amount of intimidating sexual harassment they endure daily from students. The plea from branch members at Bunbury Senior High School was revealed in the agenda for the State School Teachers Union bi-annual State Council meeting being held next week. “The Bunbury SHS branch requests that the Keeping Our Workplace Safe campaign highlights the shocking amount of sexual harassment experienced by teachers on a day-to-day basis,” the motion reads. “(The branch) asks the Department of Education to develop an explicit code of conduct aimed at educating students as an early intervention strategy to prevent the prevalence of this behaviour.” SSTU president Pat Byrne said vile or inappropriate sexual comments from students were an ongoing problem across many schools, not just Bunbury SHS. “It can be offensive comments and in some instances it can be threatening comments, like: ‘I’m going to rape you, Miss’,” she said. “I wish I could say that it’s rare, but it’s not.” “Normally, it gets dealt with through the normal school discipline process, but that’s still a very difficult situation for a lot of teachers to be in on a far too frequent basis.” Ms Byrne said sexualised comments were particularly difficult for younger, newer teachers to cope with and left them feeling vulnerable. She said male and female teachers had reported being on the receiving end of a constant barrage of sexual remarks from both boys and girls. “I suspect that it’s more prevalent from boys to female staff, but it’s certainly not uncommon for girls to make those generalised sexualised comments as well,” she said. “Some students have no filter — there’s no sense of inappropriateness.” “There’s a big shift in what many students think is normal and acceptable commentary to make.” “It’s pretty clear these kids have online access to inappropriate material, and this is what’s reflected in the commentary.” Ms Byrne said while some students may not realise their remarks were inappropriate, others clearly intended their comments to make teachers uncomfortable, so members wanted clearer strategies on how to deal with both situations. Education Minister Sue Ellery said the teachers’ union had not yet raised the issue with her. “School staff have a right to feel safe in their workplace, and I encourage them to always report bad behaviour,” she said. “The McGowan Government has acknowledged the need for change within the community to encourage respectful relationships, and invested in expanding respectful relationships education.” “Last month, we announced that our Respectful Relationships program will be introduced to an additional 22 schools this year as part of the ongoing rollout of the program across WA.” “This program provides professional learning, resources and support for teachers and school leaders as well as materials that promote relationships that are characterised by equality, mutual respect and trust.”