Having a distant connection to one of the schools discussed in the original Panorama programme, I have been reading through this thread with increasing dismay. Body-shaming and bullying...the TV programme and radio broadcast seems to be the tip of the iceberg judging by contributions on this thread. Body-shaming is in fact a form of bullying. Bullying by teachers has no place in any school, for any pupils, no matter if they are a minority of pupils. There is no excuse.
Thank you @Dr Alison Stuart for your contribution to the radio programme and to this forum. A truly independent investigation of these institutions does need to take place, like in British Gymnastics, as you said. Some of the schools mentioned are charities, some receive government MDS/ DADA funding, so asking for an investigation via change.org would seem to be a very relevant approach. It would be great if someone who knows how to frame such a request could put one together. I don't want these institutions to fail, but it seems they do need prompting to reflect on their practices. The Department for Education safeguarding leaflet 'Keeping Children Safe in Education' (which everyone working with children at these schools should have read) states that staff working with children are advised to maintain an attitude of 'it could happen here' (Para 51 of KCSIE 2023, sorry don't know how to post link to the document but it is publicly available). That should be the starting point for all the schools involved where such serious allegations have been made.
As an aside, I rang the public whistleblowing number for RBS which was staffed by independent experts. (It was mentioned on this thread somewhere). I was sounding them out before passing the number to a friend who might have wanted to use it. The whistleblowing person said that they were a private company. They would be collating complaints received and then passing them (anonymously) back to the school for them to deal with. They also said that their usual role with RBS was that they run this line for staff at the school to whistle-blow. The experts are indeed independent. But the people deciding what to do with the complaints are not. I decided not to bother passing the number onto my friend. Moderators, I have tried to be factual here. Please ask me to edit the post if necessary.
