How to Teach Consent Beyond "No Means No"

I was observing a consent lesson in a secondary school last year. The teacher was clear, confident, well-prepared. She explained the legal definition, talked about enthusiastic consent, and set up a scenario for discussion. Textbook stuff. And then a boy at the back said, quietly enough that most of the class didn’t hear: “But what if you’re not sure if she’s into it and you don’t want to ruin the moment by asking?”

If you’re not sure, stop and check. Not knowing whether someone wants this means you’d be deciding on their behalf. Consent means choosing freely and being able to make that choice. It isn’t a guess that happened to be right, or agreement you talked someone into. A pause gives both people room to decide, including deciding to stop. If you are still unsure, don’t continue.

The grey areas

A University of Surrey study by Dr Emily Setty looked at how boys are taught about consent and what they make of it. The university’s announcement of the research, published in November 2022, describes classroom observations, focus groups with boys and discussions with teachers across three schools. Setty reports that the boys generally saw value in the lessons’ clear rules, but struggled to connect those rules with the situations they imagined. They wrestled with being cast as the person who has to obtain consent, and several said they had nowhere to work out what they actually felt.

Three schools, and a qualitative study. It tells you what those boys said, not how common any of it is and not whether different teaching would change what anyone does. They were discussing anticipated situations too. If the wider picture of what boys are absorbing is useful to you, there’s a separate post on masculinity, misogyny and online influencers.

That doesn’t mean the legal definition doesn’t matter — it does, and pupils need to know it. But stopping there leaves young people without the skills to navigate the messy, uncertain situations where consent matters most.

Digital consent

Consent in 2026 isn’t just about physical situations. Young people are navigating consent around image sharing, group chats, tagging, and forwarding content. The question “is this OK?” applies to sending a screenshot of a private conversation just as much as it does to a physical interaction.

Practise the habit of checking before sharing someone’s content. Permission to send something to one person doesn’t extend to a group chat. If someone asks for sharing to stop, take that seriously and stop passing it on. Pupils who have had content shared without permission need help, not blame for having sent it.

What works in the classroom

The most effective consent sessions I’ve been part of are the ones where young people get to talk. Not listen to a presentation. Talk. Explore scenarios. Disagree with each other. Sit with discomfort.

Use distancing to keep discussion away from pupils’ own experiences. Third-person scenarios — “a young person receives a message asking for a photo” — let you discuss the choices without asking anyone to expose themselves. Say the boundary out loud before you start: we’re talking about the people in the scenario, not anyone in this room or actual incidents involving people in this school. A pupil can decline to speak; keep them included in the learning. If a pupil begins to disclose something, listen calmly and don’t ask them to say more in front of the class. Explain what happens next without promising confidentiality. Follow your school’s safeguarding procedures and speak to the DSL promptly.

One thing that doesn’t go up for debate is whether the harm in a scenario was acceptable. Pupils can argue about what someone should have noticed or said. They don’t get to argue about whether it was fine.

Single-sex discussions can help here, though they’re not always possible. The point is to create a space where boys don’t feel they’re being positioned as potential perpetrators and girls don’t feel they’re being positioned as inevitable victims. Both of those framings shut down honest conversation.

One approach I use is to give pupils a scenario and ask them to identify the moment where things could go differently. Not “where did it go wrong” — which implies blame — but “where could someone make a different choice?” It shifts the focus from judgement to agency.

Be precise about whose choice, though. The person applying pressure had a choice at every step, and that’s where the accountability sits. Other people in the scenario may have had options too, and naming them is useful — the friend who could have said something, the group chat that could have stopped forwarding. It stops being useful the moment anyone leaves the room thinking the person on the receiving end should have prevented it.

What the guidance says

Secondary consent teaching in the DfE RSHE statutory guidance applying from September 2026 sits within Respectful relationships and Being Safe, alongside boundaries, pressure and ethics beyond consent.

Worth reading the wording itself rather than anybody’s summary of it, including mine.

Trusted resources

• DfE: RSHE statutory guidance applying from September 2026.
• University of Surrey: announcement of Dr Emily Setty’s study on teenage boys and consent education, 30 November 2022.
• PSHE Association: consent lesson pack, key stages 1 to 5.

If you’d like support delivering consent education that goes beyond the basics, get in touch.