- 7.4 Peer group dynamics can also play an important role in determining a child’s vulnerability to such abuse. For example, children who are more likely to follow others and/or who are socially isolated from their other children may be more vulnerable to child-on-child abuse. Children who are questioning or exploring their sexuality may also be particularly vulnerable to abuse by their other children.
- 7.5 Child-on-child abuse may affect boys differently from girls, and that this difference may result from societal norms (particularly around power, control and the way in which femininity and masculinity are constructed) rather than biological make-up. Barriers to disclosure will also be different. As a result, we explore the gender dynamics of child-on-child abuse within our school.
- 7.6 Children with Special Educational Needs and/or Disabilities (SEND) are three times more likely to be abused than their other children without SEND and additional barriers can sometimes exist when recognising abuse in children with SEND. These can include:
- ● assumptions that indicators of possible abuse such as behaviour, mood and injury relate to a child’s disability without further exploration
- ● the potential for children with SEND to be disproportionately impacted by behaviours such as bullying and harassment, without outwardly showing any signs
- ● communication barriers and difficulties overcoming these barriers
- 7.7Some children may be more likely to experience child-on-child abuse than others as a result of certain characteristics such as sexual orientation, ethnicity, race or religious beliefs.
- 8. A whole-school approach:
- 8.1 We actively seek to raise awareness of and prevent all forms of child-on-child abuse by educating governors, our senior leadership team, staff, pupils, and parents about this issue.

This includes training governors, the senior leadership team, and staff on the nature, prevalence and effect of child-on-child abuse, and how to prevent, identify, and respond to it. This includes

- ● contextual safeguarding
- ● the identification and classification of specific behaviours, including digital behaviours
- ● the importance of taking seriously all forms of child-on-child abuse (no matter how ‘low level’ they may appear) and ensuring that no form of child-on-child abuse is ever dismissed as play fighting or teasing
- ● social media and online safety, including how to encourage children to use social media in a
- ● positive, responsible and safe way, and how to enable them to identify and manage abusive behaviour online
- ● educating pupils about the nature and prevalence of child-on-child abuse, positive,
- ● responsible and safe use of social media, and the unequivocal facts about consent, via PSHE and the wider curriculum
- ● pupils are frequently told what to do if they witness or experience such abuse, the effect that it can have on those who experience it and the possible reasons for it, including vulnerability of those who inflict such abuse, they are regularly informed about our approach to such issues
- ● educating pupils (age appropriate) about consent includes teaching them basic facts such as a child under the age of 13 can never consent to any sexual activity, the age of consent is 16 and that sexual intercourse without consent is rape

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