Top school head: ‘Look to Harry Potter to call out sexual harassment’

The head of one of London’s most elite state schools called on pupils to be more like the character Neville Longbottom from the Harry Potter novels and stand up to friends in the light of harassment and assault.

Speaking in the wake of the “Everyone’s Invited” scandal, in which a rape culture in schools was exposed, James Handscombe, Principal of Harris Westminster sixth form, told pupils they must be “socially scrupulous” and call out their friends if they need to.

In a whole school assembly he praised Neville for standing up to his friends Ron and Harry who were breaking school rules, and quoted Hogwarts headmaster Dumbledore saying: “It takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to our enemies, but just as much to stand up to our friends.”

Mr Handscombe spoke out after more than thousands of testimonials of abuse and harassment in schools and universities were published on the Everyone’s Invited website, sparking a national conversation about rape culture in schools.

Explaining his decision to make his assembly public, Mr Handscombe said: “I don’t think it’s right to pretend that the challenges of relationships and communication and jerks among young men and women are restricted to a few private schools. This is a society problem - it’s all our problem, we all need to respond.”

In his assembly Mr Handscombe told pupils at the highly selective sixth form academy: “What has happened here is not as bad as what has been reported in other schools but this is not the point – we have an opportunity here and now to reflect and to respond, and like all good scholars I intend that we should do so scrupulously.”

He added: “We need to stand up to our friends. We need to call them out. We need to say that there are some behaviours that are incompatible with our friendship.

“We need to step away from the Death Eaters….Listen scrupulously to each other, learn from each other, have courage to say when things are wrong, courage to make a stand when your friends are wrong. Be more Neville – and never be the Ron who says ‘You weren’t meant to stand up against us!’”

Mr Handscombe said being “socially scrupulous” means standing up to your friends when they behave in a way you would rail against from your enemies.

He admitted he has had “uncomfortable conversations” with a lot of pupils “trying to think about what is wrong with our community, how it is that we’ve allowed harassment, assault, unpleasantness to take place. And then thinking about what can make it better.”

He said they have discussed how to make it clear that “touching each other’s thighs without clear invitation is the action of a jerk” and how to “have the courage to tell a friend that what they just said was inappropriate and out of line.”

He added: “Being socially scrupulous is part of that – having the courage to stand up to your friends – having the strength of character to support those who do.”

He called on pupils to continue to talk about the issue, adding: “[These conversations are] uncomfortable now, but talking about avoiding assault is a whole lot less uncomfortable than being assaulted so let’s get used to it – let’s normalise our interrogation of what’s ok.”

Mr Handscombe, 46, has previously revealed he used the lyrics of Taylor Swift in his assemblies, including an assembly about ambition, and praised the popstar as a great philosopher.

He also said he draws inspiration for assemblies from Shakespeare, Yeats, Donne and Samuel Beckett.

Mr Handscombe’s favourite lines by Taylor Swift include “I’m dancing on my own, make the moves up as I go and that’s what they don’t know.”

The lyrics are from Shake it Of in which Ms Swift shows she is not trying to follow everyone else’s tune.

Harris Westminster opened in 2014 with the help of neighbouring Westminster School, which is independent.

It takes high numbers of bright pupils from poor backgrounds and last year 44 pupils had offers from Oxbridge.

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