Harmful Sexual Behaviour: Moving Beyond Zero-Tolerance in Schools – What Could This Mean for Criminalisation?

15th September 2025

Everyone’s Safer – Year 3 report (Lucy Faithfull Foundation)
The Lucy Faithfull Foundation’s third-year report looks at how 30 schools responded to harmful sexual behaviour (HSB). It argues that schools should move away from strict “zero-tolerance” rules and instead focus on whole-school culture, restorative practice, and teaching children the skills to build healthy relationships.

Details

  • The report says “zero-tolerance” and heavy reliance on legal rules can oversimplify complex situations. They can also stop children from speaking up. Instead, schools should base their prevention and responses on values, skills and school culture – not just punishment.
  • It highlights the challenges of online sexual behaviour. For example, criminalising all image-sharing between children can stop them seeking help. The report suggests schools should focus on teaching consent, ethics, and peer respect.
  • Staff found the ‘6 Rs’ framework useful: Recognise, Respond, Record, Report, Risk-manage, Reflect. This gave them a clear step-by-step process. The “Reflect” stage helped staff avoid reacting too harshly and think about what worked well or needed to change.
  • The key recommendations are:
    1. Take a whole-school approach, with strong leadership and joined-up work with other agencies.
    2. Review behaviour and safeguarding policies so they include restorative and educative options, alongside proper training and survivor-centred safeguards.
    3. Strengthen RSE to help children develop empathy, respect and healthier peer relationships.
  • The report also notes that current government guidance emphasises zero-tolerance[1] but schools need clearer advice and more flexibility so they can adapt to their context.

Commentary

If implemented properly, with the flexibility the report calls for, the recommendations should reduce the criminalisation of children for harmful sexual behaviour, enabling them to learn from their mistakes without a stigmatising record for a sexual offence:

  • The report warns that zero-tolerance and blanket rules can push schools to refer cases to the police that could be dealt with in education or safeguarding.
  • Restorative, survivor-centred approaches help schools keep proportionate cases out of the criminal justice system.
  • The ‘6 Rs’ framework creates a clear process for deciding when police involvement is needed and when schools can respond internally. This helps reduce unnecessary referrals, especially for children with SEND.
  • A stronger focus on skills-based RSE and positive school culture should prevent many issues from arising in the first place, reducing the number of cases that might reach a criminal threshold.

However, there are possible risks to this approach:

  • If schools are asked to record more incidents but do not have clear alternatives to police referral, this could still lead to higher criminalisation.
  • If restorative work is not survivor-centred and well supported, it may be seen as downplaying harm, leading to external escalation. The report suggests training, scripts and external help to make sure schools can do this properly.

This report will be useful to youth justice practitioners wanting to argue for informal diversion in cases involving harmful sexual behaviour discovered by a school or linked to a school incident.   


 

[1][1] Department for Education: Sexual Violence and Sexual Harassment between Children in Schools and Colleges, para 9, page 9.