Tackling Youth Violence: RSHE 2025

The Youth Endowment Fund (YEF) has published a report offering a practical, evidence-informed framework to help schools, colleges, and alternative provision (AP) settings tackle youth violence across England and Wales.

It is grounded in data collated from responses from more than 7,500 teenagers and 9,500 teachers, and it couldn’t be more timely.

'Why?'

Because from September 2026, the Department for Education’s updated RSHE 2025 statutory guidance will come into force, placing a stronger emphasis on safeguarding, sexual harassment, misogyny, and online harm. The new curriculum framework complements the YEF’s call to action and offers schools a clear opportunity to reset how they support young people at risk of harm.

Why Schools Have a Vital Role

Schools not only educate. They are a daily anchor point for young people, a place where difficulties can be detected early, and where relationships, safety, and behaviour are shaped. The YEF report highlights this potential.

But it also uncovers serious current problems:

• 13% of secondary teachers reported sexual assaults between pupils during the last term;
• Nearly half of teachers felt unsure about how to intervene;
• Over 50% said they lacked the tools to deliver effective RSHE;
• Seven in ten felt unprepared to teach violence prevention strategies;
• And almost a third had never received RSHE training at all.

In light of these findings both the YEF’s guidance and RSHE 2025 framework put an emphasis on whole-school culture change, not just content delivery.

Five Key Steps to Safer School Environments

The YEF outlines five priority actions for schools to tackle violence. The RSHE 2025 guidance provides the curriculum context to underpin each priority.

1. Keeping Pupils in Education

   Disengagement from school, through suspension, absence, or exclusion, significantly increases the risk of violence, exploitation, and harm. The YEF calls on schools to spot early signs of withdrawal and work preventatively. RSHE 2025 reinforces this by emphasising the protective power of education, emotional literacy, and inclusive school communities, especially for pupils with SEND, mental health needs, or adverse childhood experiences (ACEs).

2. Building Trusting Relationships

   Young people need at least one trusted adult; someone who knows them, checks in, and notices when something changes. Whether it’s a mentor, form tutor, or wellbeing lead, these relationships are critical.

   The RSHE 2025 guidance stresses that pastoral care must go beyond a reactive model. It advocates proactive relationship-building and embedding respectful, values-led communication throughout school life.

3. Strengthening Social and Emotional Skills

   Helping pupils manage anger, resolve conflict, and develop empathy is key to preventing violence. YEF calls on schools to embed Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) across the curriculum, not just in RSHE lessons. RSHE 2025 supports this approach, encouraging schools to prioritise emotional development, consent, respectful behaviour, and digital literacy. It also introduces new content to address coercive control, pornographic influence, and online misogyny.

4. Targeting Times and Places Where Violence Happens

   Violence is often predictable: it flares during transitions, unsupervised breaks, or in certain physical spaces. YEF advises schools to analyse patterns, consult pupils, and design targeted interventions. RSHE 2025 adds depth here, requiring schools to consider how safe spaces are created, not just in classrooms but across the school site, and to ensure consistency between policy and lived experience.

5. Avoiding Harmful Approaches

   Tough-sounding interventions, like zero-tolerance policies or one-off ‘scared straight’ sessions, don’t work. YEF warns these can even exacerbate the risk for vulnerable pupils. RSHE 2025 echoes this by mandating trauma-informed, evidence-based delivery. Content must be age-appropriate, inclusive, and free from fear-based messaging. It also urges leaders to provide robust training so staff feel equipped—not overwhelmed.

Prioritising Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG)

A major area of concern is harmful sexual behaviour and relationship abuse. Despite RSHE being statutory since 2020, YEF and student surveys reveal a gap between policy and practice.

To address this, YEF proposes a national network of trained VAWG leads in every secondary, college, and AP setting. These roles would:

• Oversee schoolwide prevention strategies
• Improve RSHE curriculum quality
• Bring in external experts
• Help staff build confidence in challenging harmful attitudes

The RSHE 2025 guidance aligns directly with this, introducing specific teaching content on VAWG, consent, and digital safety. It places strong emphasis on creating safe, open dialogue, particularly around pornography, online harm, and power dynamics in relationships.

YEF suggests an initial £1 million pilot in 50 settings, with £35 million proposed for national rollout. Schools would receive £8,000 each to support this work.

Investing in Long-Term Change

Both the YEF and RSHE 2025 make clear: this isn’t about ticking boxes, it’s about transforming school culture. The YEF recommends:

• A £100 million five-year fund to scale proven violence reduction strategies
• Focus on areas with the highest need
• Updates to Pupil Premium guidance so schools can invest in violence prevention initiatives
• RSHE 2025 supports this by embedding safeguarding outcomes into curriculum design, accountability frameworks, and Ofsted expectations from September 2026.

HM Government have pledged to halve violence against women and girls by 2035, both the YEF 2025 Guidance and the RSHE 2025 curriculum offer schools a powerful roadmap for action. But this won’t happen overnight. Schools need time, training, and investment. That’s why preparation in the 2025–26 academic year is crucial.

Schools should start reviewing their RSHE offer now, ensuring it’s trauma-informed, inclusive, and ready to meet the challenges ahead. Preventing youth violence isn’t just a curriculum issue. It’s a safeguarding mission, and one every school can help lead.

SSS Learning

6 August 2025