Nine in ten teachers support plans to legally require those who work with children to report suspicions of child sexual abuse
New plans unveiled by the Home Office at the beginning of April will impose a legal requirement on people who work with children to report allegations of child sexual abuse.
Teachers overwhelmingly support the changes, with 89% backing the move, including 66% who ‘strongly’ support it. Only 5% are opposed.
The results reveal that as many as one in three teachers (36%) have had pupils they suspect were being sexually abused.
Among older teachers – who are most likely to have been in the profession the longest – this figure rises to 42%.
And among teachers in schools with higher proportions of pupils on free school meals – a rough indicator of how many students from poor families the school has – the number suspecting they have had pupils suffering sexual abuse rises as high as 50%.
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