How a struggling school tackled misogyny and became a happier place

When hard-hitting British drama Adolescence was first screened last year, it was lauded as a TV masterpiece

Netflix subsequently made it free to watch for classes in secondary schools, and the prime minister said it had "lit a touch paper" for discussions about social media, misogyny and the so-called manosphere.

For many schools, it opened up a Pandora's box of challenges, but one school in Essex was ahead of the game.

In February last year, Ofsted rated Chase High School in Southend-on-Sea as inadequate and placed it in special measures.

The report made for very uncomfortable reading.

"Pupils regularly experience bullying, racial, sexual and homophobic discrimination," inspectors wrote.

Girls were "routinely discriminated against" by boys; staff did not always intervene; and "too many pupils" would "suffer in silence", including after experiencing sexual harassment.

However, before the report was published, staff got to work.

The school implemented its own specialist training and has run numerous workshops and events, championing gender equality and questioning the definitions of masculinity.

In March this year, Ofsted said "bullying, sexist and discriminatory behaviour" was rare and was robustly challenged.

It said the school was "a happier place, with more effective teaching" and lifted it out of special measures.

Assistant head teacher Lauren Hedges said the school was "ahead of the game" when Adolescence was released in March last year.

The four-part series followed a 13-year-old boy accused of murdering a girl at his school, against a backdrop of so-called toxic masculinity being spread online.

"[Adolescence] was a phenomenal piece of television. I was very much a fan and it was so good because it highlighted to parents what could be happening in the home," said Hedges.

"[But] we were already working on it; we were already very much in it. So it wasn't something that we needed to use as a school.

"We didn't have those extreme behaviours. We didn't have students that were in the manosphere, that were deep into that culture.

"What we had was the beginning of that. What we had was students making comments, making memes, making [harmful] Instagram accounts, which, if you don't tackle that, absolutely, you can end up with the other side of that."

Chase High School has 1,321 pupils, some of whom are from the city's more deprived neighbourhoods, with 42% eligible for free school meals.

Hedges started at the school in January 2024, becoming its lead on behaviour and culture.

There was no manual for tackling misogyny, so she turned to external consultants.

She and colleagues put together training on spotting the signs – what was trending online – and rolled it out to all staff, including caterers and cleaners.

One of the issues was some pupils being "very dominant" and physical in corridors.

"But when we dug into it, when we had honest and frank conversations with these young people, they didn't realise they were doing it; they didn't realise how this was being perceived; they didn't understand the consequences of using particular words and the history of particular words," she explained.

The school set up an anonymous "tell-us" system, in which pupils could write down concerning behaviour they had witnessed on a postcard and place it in a postbox.

Boys most at risk of being exposed to domestic violence were introduced to focussed talking groups and local council-approved male mentors came to speak tothese students.

For International Women's Day, the school collected 600 daffodils, which pupils were encouraged to give to girls and women in their lives they wanted to celebrate.

"That was so powerful to see, to see hundreds and hundreds of teenagers walking out of school with a little bunch of daffodils," said Hedges.

Sixth-form girls volunteered as mentors for Year 7 girls and Chelsea FC academy coaches spoke to pupils about language on the football field.

Its fortnight-long boys' cooking club proved a big hit.

"To go into a kitchen at 3:15 every afternoon for two weeks, and see 20 young men with their aprons on, making their pasta, cutting up their chicken, and they could tell you who they were making it for, why they were making it for them - that is special. That was really poignant."

This year, they put together a three-week festival celebrating women and girls, which included creating a mural.

Hedges is keen to stress that the latest Ofsted report is the result of a team effort, and that pupils must ultimately take the credit.

"I'm incredibly proud of everything that everybody in the school has done," she said.

"Young people get such a bad reputation in society and for our small piece of that society to be recognised, in such a positive way, was absolutely fantastic.

"[The students] bought into it, they wanted to do this, they wanted to learn about it, they wanted to improve it."

Hedges said pupils now felt confident calling each other out for discriminatory language.

Head teacher Matt Suttenwood also praised staff for creating a "calmer, safer and more ambitious environment".

"We recognise there is still work to do, particularly in ensuring that teaching and outcomes improve consistently across all subjects," he added.

In a Unison survey of UK school support staff, published in March 2024, 24% of the 2,006 respondents said they had witnessed pupils discussing sexist online content.

Last year, a survey of 11,000 young people by the Youth Endowment Fund found 36% of 13 to 17-year-olds experienced emotionally abusive or controlling behaviour.

Girls were more likely to go through it.

Author Andrew Bernard, who tours schools speaking about gender equality, is one of the people whose material helped shape Chase High School's strategy.

He said all schools were facing increasingly sexist and misogynistic behaviour, linked with "ideas contained in the manosphere and the aspirational misogynists who are impacting on their attitudes and behaviours".

"Culture will only improve with a whole-school approach and Chase High School has proven, that with bravery and focus, it can be done," said Bernard.

In December, the government announced training to help teachers tackle misogyny as part of a £20m package.

Bernard said it was important that boys were not singled out, and that teaching the values of "respectful behaviours, consent and harmful conduct" was of equal importance for girls.

Meanwhile, Matt Pinkett, a teacher and author who also talks in schools about masculinity, said he would like to see the government pledging more money to tackle the issue.

"But it's a start," he said.

The Department for Education (DfE) is also due to roll out a new relationships, health and sex education curriculum from September.

Children will be taught how to spot and avoid AI, deepfakes, "online harms" and how to foster healthy relationships.

A spokesperson said: "It is great to see schools already taking action, and we will continue to support schools through our resources to help teachers recognise and tackle incel ideologies."

Hedges stressed that her school still had work to do.

"We want to keep that momentum going and we want our young people to drive that forward, and be that beacon and that good example."

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