Understanding abuse carried out by children against other children — including bullying, sexual harassment, violence, and sexting — and schools' duties under KCSIE.
Peer-on-Peer Abuse is harmful behaviour between children of a similar age, including bullying, physical or sexual abuse, harassment, and sharing of nude images.
Peer-on-peer abuse refers to harmful behaviour by children directed at other children. It includes bullying, physical violence, sexual harassment, sexual violence, sexting (sharing intimate images), and coercive or controlling behaviour in peer relationships. Under Keeping Children Safe in Education (KCSIE) Part 5, schools have clear duties to create environments where peer abuse is not tolerated and to respond effectively when it occurs.
Peer-on-peer abuse can occur in person and online. It includes a wide spectrum of behaviour, from name-calling and social exclusion to serious sexual assault. KCSIE requires schools to have clear policies on peer-on-peer abuse and to ensure that staff understand it can and does happen. Children who display harmful behaviour may themselves have been harmed, and responses should consider the needs of both victim and perpetrator.
In your child's behaviour
On their device
Implement a robust anti-bullying and peer abuse policy
KCSIE requires schools to have policies that explicitly address peer-on-peer abuse. Policies should cover online and offline behaviour, include clear reporting mechanisms, and be reviewed regularly.
Provide ongoing PSHE education on healthy relationships
Relationship and Sex Education (RSE) should include age-appropriate content on consent, boundaries, and what healthy peer relationships look like. Children need the language and confidence to identify and report abuse.
Train all staff to respond to disclosures appropriately
Staff should know how to receive a disclosure without minimising the concern or treating it as 'normal' behaviour. KCSIE is clear that peer-on-peer abuse must be taken as seriously as abuse by adults.
In immediate danger: call 999. For non-emergency police matters, call 101.
Concerned about a child but it's not an emergency? NSPCC helpline 0808 800 5000. Childline for young people 0800 1111.
This is practical educational content to support families. For case-specific concerns about a child's safety, contact the NSPCC helpline on 0808 800 5000 or your local safeguarding team.
Myth: It's just banter — children have always teased each other, and they toughen up.
Fact: Statutory safeguarding guidance is explicit that harmful behaviour between children must never be dismissed as banter, teasing, or 'part of growing up'. Sexual harassment, coercion, sharing nudes, and persistent bullying cause real harm, and schools have a duty to take them as seriously as abuse by adults.
Myth: Children can't really abuse other children — abuse comes from adults.
Fact: A significant proportion of harm experienced by children comes from other children, online and offline, and UK safeguarding guidance names child-on-child abuse as something schools must assume is happening even when it isn't being reported. Recognising this is not about demonising children — it is what allows adults to step in early.
Myth: If my child has harmed another child, they're simply a bad kid and punishment is the answer.
Fact: A child who harms another child is also a safeguarding concern in their own right — harmful behaviour can signal that they have themselves been harmed, or exposed to things they cannot process. The right response takes the harm seriously and protects the victim, while also getting support for the child who caused it, so the behaviour actually changes.
Build the vocabulary early: the difference between falling out and being unkind on purpose, that their body belongs to them, and that they should always tell a trusted adult if another child hurts, frightens, or pressures them — or if they see it happening to someone else.
As group chats and secondary school begin, talk about where 'banter' tips into harassment, pile-ons, and exclusion, and about never sharing embarrassing images of others. Make clear the school has a duty to act on behaviour between pupils, and that reporting is not snitching.
Be direct about sexual harassment, pressure for nudes, and controlling behaviour in early relationships — both experiencing it and doing it. Explain that sharing intimate images of anyone under 18 is a criminal offence, and keep the door open: many teenagers stay silent out of shame or loyalty to friends.
Focus on healthy relationships and consent as they gain independence: recognising coercive and controlling behaviour, supporting a friend who discloses abuse, and knowing the routes to help — college or university safeguarding staff, the police, and confidential services they can contact themselves.
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