Seren says ‘You can’t just allow children aged eight to 18 to get on with it and think it will be ok’
All names and identifying details have been changed.
Participants have given us permission to share their experiences.
Seren was sent to a mixed-sex boarding school in the 1990s.
She was thrown into an environment where teachers turned a blind eye to inappropriate sexual relationships and she is still very distressed by her experiences.
Seren describes her home life as ‘problematic’ and she believes that when she went away to school, her parents felt they were absolved of any responsibility for her.
The school took pupils from the age of eight to 18. As a young and naive girl, Seren was immediately exposed to an ‘openly sexual culture’ where children and young people regularly engaged in sexual acts.
She continues ‘When I was a bit older, I saw people have sex in the common rooms’. She says nothing was said or done by teachers about this and there was very little supervision to stop boys and girls going into each other’s dormitories at night. ‘I felt a complete lack of guidance on what is appropriate behaviour.’
When Seren was 14, she was raped by an older male pupil. She describes this as ‘my first experience of penetrative sex’, but years later when she told her husband, he pointed out it was rape.
She felt unable to ask the boy to wear a condom and afterwards she went to get the morning-after pill because she was worried she might be pregnant.
Losing her virginity this way had a profound emotional effect on her. When the boy promptly had another ‘relationship’ with a girl at the school, she was devastated. A few weeks later, some of the other pupils wrote something on a wall about her losing her virginity to the older boy.
Seren relates this incident in great distress. She says it was obvious this was a recurring theme. ‘He had done it to other people and it was just joked about. It wasn’t ok.’
Teaching staff saw the graffiti, but although it was clear what was being implied, and Seren was very upset, no one addressed the situation. She said there was no one she could speak to in the school and even though she went home every few weeks, she could not talk to her parents.
In her despair, Seren left the school one evening and drank so much that paramedics attended to her. She was suspended from school and the headteacher later asked her mother if Seren had an alcohol problem.
Seren has no doubt that staff at the school ‘turned a blind eye’ to the sexual behaviour that was going on. She feels this sent a message to the children that this behaviour was acceptable. ‘It was almost like they played a part in it’ she says, adding that there were frequent rumours that some teachers were having sexual relationships with sixth-formers.
Looking back as an adult, Seren feels that the school failed in its duty to fulfil its responsibilities and protect her.
Being exposed to this sexualised environment at a very young age, and being sexually abused herself, continues to have a significant impact on Seren.
She suffers with low self-esteem and low self-worth. ‘I feel if people treat me badly that’s ok because it’s normal’ she says. She suffers with anxiety and feels she needs to be in control too much.
Seren feels very strongly that parents of children at boarding schools should be actively encouraged to be involved in their child’s progress and welfare, that there should be independent inspections which are child-focussed, and an approachable and clearly identified adult to whom children are able to report concerns.
She would also like to see tighter supervision and safeguarding of pupils.
Seren is having counselling. Her husband is also supportive but she says it is challenging for him.