The Department for Education has set out a new plan intended to help schools address misogyny more directly, framing the issue as both a safeguarding concern and a question of school culture. The Education Secretary said schools will be supported through a practical framework, including guides for staff, teacher training and support for parents. According to the government announcement, the aim is not limited to responding to incidents after they occur. The policy is designed to shape expectations across daily school life, so that teaching, enrichment activity, pastoral support and conduct beyond the classroom all work towards the same standard of respect.
The department is making the case for intervention with recent evidence on pupils' experience in school. It said that, in May, half of girls reported hearing misogynistic comments from other pupils during a single week, while almost three in ten Year 10 and Year 11 pupils said they had recently heard comments that made them worry about the safety of girls. Those figures matter for implementation because they move the issue beyond isolated misconduct. In policy terms, the announcement treats misogyny as a recurring pressure on safety, belonging and participation, which places it alongside wider safeguarding and behaviour responsibilities already carried by schools.
The announcement also sits within the government's strengthened Relationships, Sex and Health Education offer. Ministers said the strategy builds on RSHE now being taught in schools, with stronger teaching on healthy relationships, recognising harmful behaviour and understanding online harms, including deepfakes and other damaging content. In practical terms, that points to a whole-school approach rather than a single lesson or awareness exercise. School leaders are being asked to connect curriculum content with behaviour policies, pastoral systems and communication with parents, so that messages about respect and healthy relationships are reinforced in more than one setting.
To support delivery, the government is investing £150,000 in a new RSHE expert advisory group. The group is expected to bring together specialist organisations and practitioners to develop further resources, with the stated purpose of helping teachers handle sensitive and complex subjects with greater confidence. That funding is targeted at content and professional support rather than direct grants to schools. For teachers, the main effect is likely to be access to more standard material and clearer advice on teaching difficult topics consistently, particularly where online abuse, coercive behaviour and gender-based hostility overlap.
A second strand of the package sits within the government's £16 million Violence Against Women and Girls Prevention Programme. Two new programmes have begun work: one focused on improving secondary pupils' attitudes towards healthy relationships, and one focused specifically on boys, with an emphasis on challenging harmful attitudes and negative online influences. The department said both schemes will operate as pilots before any wider rollout. That means this is an implementation and evidence-gathering phase rather than an immediate national programme, with ministers testing which interventions have the strongest effect before extending them to more schools.
The government is also working with the Youth Endowment Fund on programmes for children aged 12 to 16 intended to promote respect, build resilience and provide positive role models. Set alongside the school announcement, that work suggests ministers want the response to draw on both curriculum policy and targeted prevention work with adolescents. The schools package also sits within the government's broader work on misogyny, including a partnership with major employers announced separately by Bridget Phillipson in her role as Minister for Women and Equalities. That wider framing matters because it presents the school measures as one part of a broader prevention approach rather than a stand-alone education initiative.
Young people are also expected to see stronger teaching on media literacy through future curriculum reform. The stated objective is to help pupils assess online material more critically, recognise manipulation and respond more safely to the growing volume of harmful content that shapes attitudes outside school. For schools, the immediate signal is that action on misogyny is being folded into mainstream expectations on safeguarding, RSHE and behaviour, rather than treated as a separate initiative. The next practical questions are when the framework will be published, what training will involve and how findings from the pilots will be translated into day-to-day practice.