Child on child abuse is a safeguarding matter that is taken seriously at Holy Trinity Primary school. We are committed to the prevention, early identification and appropriate management of child on child abuse and to ensure that any form of child on child abuse or sexually harmful behaviour is dealt with immediately and consistently. This will reduce the extent of harm to the young person and minimise the potential impact on that individual child’s emotional and mental health and wellbeing.

Keeping Children Safe in Education 2026 states:

Child-on-child abuse is most likely to include, but may not be limited to:

• Bullying (including cyberbullying, prejudice-based and discriminatory bullying),

• Discriminatory behaviour, including racism, faith-targeted abuse, and other prejudice based incidents,

• Abuse in intimate personal relationships between children (sometimes known as ‘teenage relationship abuse’),

• Physical abuse such as hitting, kicking, shaking, biting, hair pulling, or otherwise causing physical harm (this may include an online element which facilitates, threatens and/or encourages physical abuse),

• Serious physical assault and harm, or the threat of harm with a weapon,

• Sexual violence such as rape, assault by penetration and sexual assault (this may include an online element which facilitates, threatens and/or encourages sexual violence),

• Sexual harassment such as sexual comments, remarks, jokes and online sexual harassment, which may be standalone or part of a broader pattern of abuse,

• Causing someone to engage in sexual activity without consent, such as forcing someone to strip, touch themselves sexually, or to engage in sexual activity with a third party,

• Consensual and non-consensual making or sharing of nudes and semi nudes,

• Upskirting which typically involves taking a picture under a person’s clothing without their permission, with the intention of viewing their genitals or buttocks to obtain sexual gratification, or cause the victim humiliation, distress, or alarm, and

• Initiation/hazing type violence and rituals (this could include activities involving harassment, abuse or humiliation used as a way of initiating a person into a group and may also include an online element).

 

KCSiE 2026 states that governing bodies and proprietors should ensure that their child protection policy includes:

• procedures to minimise the risk of child on child  abuse;
• how allegations of child on child abuse will be recorded, investigated and dealt with;
• clear processes as to how victims, perpetrators and any other child affected by peer on peer abuse will be supported;

• a clear statement that abuse is abuse and should never be tolerated or passed off as “banter”, “just having a laugh” or “part of growing up”;
• recognition of the gendered nature of child on child abuse (i.e. that it is more likely that girls will be victims and boys perpetrators), but that all child on child abuse is unacceptable and will be taken seriously; and
• the different forms peer on peer abuse can take.

The guidance also states that Governing bodies and proprietors should ensure their child protection policy reflects the fact that additional barriers can exist when recognising abuse and neglect in this group of children (Children with special educational needs (SEN) and disabilities) These can include being more prone to peer group isolation than other children.