If sexual harassment in politics and showbiz has raised eyebrows of late, the level of it in schools should set alarm bells ringing. Reports of sexual offences by children towards other children are on the increase. There’s also a broad gamut of harassment in schools, as in all workplaces. Even in the less serious cases – boys pinging girls’ bras, for example – for those targeted it can be wearing and humiliating.

Teachers are not immune, either. Cases have yet to be reported of inappropriate behaviour by school leaders but there is plenty of pupil-on-teacher abuse. As a 23-year-old trainee I found the word “whore” written on my classroom door more than once. At the time I rolled my eyes and wiped it off. Now I’d be mad as hell.

So what can be done? The government, continuing in its weird belief that shuffling sentences around on a page will somehow solve everything, says it will “issue more guidance” to schools. It’s almost certainly a waste of time.

Some MPs have sensibly called for more sex education, but without extra, trained specialist teachers, the government’s plan to make the subject compulsory by 2019 is likely to end only in red-faced biology teachers spluttering over vagina diagrams, further embedding the idea that sex is so embarrassing that we ideally shouldn’t speak about it ever again.

In Scotland, a controversial new policy could provide a better solution. There, plans are afoot to give every child a “named person” who is responsible for getting any wider support a child or family needs. For pre-school children it is likely to be a health visitor; for school-age children, a senior teacher.

It is not a perfect plan. For a start, teachers are not always trained in accessing health care or social services. Nor do they necessarily have the time to help families with complex needs. (The role will be on top of their usual duties.) Christian advocacy groups claim the idea undermines parents, and legal issues around information sharing are holding up its implementation.

But the basic idea of every child having a named individual to whom they can turn with concerns about their safety is far from ridiculous. If carefully thought through, it could help with sexual harassment and be extended so that each teacher has a “named person” too.

A problem for anyone experiencing harassment is the fear that speaking up will make life worse. This is particularly the case where everyone in charge seems to be in on things together. Imagine you are a 14-year-old girl and boys keep making fun of your chest. How easy is it for you to tell your form tutor if he seems to be “one of the lads” and makes jokes with the boys in your class?

Or let’s imagine you are a male staff member in an all-girls’ school, working with predominantly female staff. Over-excited by your presence, the pupils crowd you during your lunch duties and shower you with inappropriate comments. You try to tell your boss but they laugh it off. Girls will be girls, they say. How dangerous can they be?

These are real situations that have left the people involved feeling anxious and helpless.

Now, imagine each scenario again. This time the victim has the name of an independent person responsible for listening and acting dispassionately. Someone they can contact via email or WhatsApp. A professional whom they can chat to in a low-stakes way before figuring out the next steps. Someone outside of the power web.

The difficult question is who should be given the role. New government agencies notoriously bloat and go wrong, which is why Scotland is using people already in liaison roles. But our public services are slammed. Police officers and social workers are drowning in casework. This is one reason why, I suspect, England won’t go near it.

The irony, of course, is that the Westminster sex scandal could lead to exactly this sort of independent ombudsman system for MPs and parliamentary workers. It will be a shame if, yet again, a solution can be found for parliament’s ills, but not for our children.