Best Practice

Keeping Children Safe in Education: Three ways to get ahead for September

Safeguarding Legislation and guidance
The statutory safeguarding guidance Keeping children safe in education is updated every year in readiness for September. Elizabeth Rose looks at the latest changes and what schools need to be doing
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The draft of this year’s version of Keeping children safe in education has been published (DfE, 2024) and although changes are minimal in comparison to previous years, there are still important points to be aware of and action that needs to be taken to respond to the updates.

The final document will be published soon and will come into force from September 1, 2024. There may be some changes from the draft version, but plans can still be put in place now to respond to and prepare for the changes.

 

The definition of safeguarding

The definition of safeguarding has been updated to more closely align with the statutory guidance Working together to safeguard children (DfE, 2023a), although it doesn’t currently include all of the same elements. However, there is greater emphasis on early intervention by meeting the needs of children as soon as problems emerge and direct reference to harm outside the family home as well as online.

 

Early help

The adaptations around early help extend further than the definition of safeguarding and the list of children for whom staff should be additionally vigilant has been updated.

Notably, there is a direct reference within this list now to children who go missing from education (as well as home or care) and children who experience multiple suspensions, are at risk of permanent exclusion, attend alternative provision, or attend a pupil referral unit.

This refreshed list makes it clear that these children are more vulnerable and reminds staff of their responsibilities to be particularly alert to the safeguarding needs of these children.

 

Types of harm

There is greater emphasis throughout on exploitation, which is now included where “abuse and neglect” are mentioned. This highlights the issue repeatedly and underlines the fact that children are victims of exploitation in the same way as they are of other forms of abuse and neglect.

The definition of abuse also emphasises that children may experience harm when witnessing the ill-treatment of others (in the case of domestic abuse, for example).

 

Information-sharing

The points around the designated safeguarding lead’s information-sharing responsibilities have been extended and there are wording changes throughout linking to information-sharing.

It is now additionally clear that child protection records should include all concerns, discussions and decisions made, including the rationale for those decisions. This should include instances where referrals were or were not made to other agencies.

 

Areas still under review

Two areas remain under review – “children who are lesbian, gay, bisexual or gender questioning” and “radicalisation” (within Annex B). This is because of the consultation into the proposed guidance for schools on gender questioning children (DfE, 2023b) and the updated definition of extremism published in March (DLHC, 2024). Proposed changes can be seen in the draft document, but these may change in due course.

For a full list of changes see both the “Table of substantive changes” in Annex F in the Keeping children safe in education draft guidance and other minor changes detailed throughout the draft document.

 

Three ways to prepare

1, Read and understand: For safeguarding leads, reading the updated document, as well as re-reading Working together to safeguard children (DfE, 2023a) is essential, to ensure that you understand the changes fully and can see how the updates work together across the two documents. Read through and highlight key changes as well as important areas you want to prioritise in training and development next academic year across the wider document.

2, Think about your policy: You may use a model policy that is likely to be updated for you (by the local authority, for example) or you might be responsible for updating the policy yourself. Either way, it isn’t just a case of copying and pasting from guidance or from the model. Think about what the changes mean for your context and how they will have an impact on your practice and procedures. Review the year that is coming to an end and think about anything you have learned and managed that could help to strengthen your policy. Local context and personalisation are essential.

3, Consider your training: Consider how you will ensure that any changes in the document are effectively communicated to staff and think through how this will have an impact on practice. Staff can be told about changes, but deeply understanding their responsibilities and what the changes mean for them may take more time to embed. Helping them to understand what changes mean for the school, for the children, and for the expectations of their everyday practice is essential. Don’t forget training for part-time staff, governors, volunteers, agency staff and contractors too – all of those working in or on behalf of the school need to know your policy and procedures.

 

Final thoughts

As you can see, the “technical changes” still have repercussions for policy, practice and training. Although we haven’t had the final version of the document yet, there are still lots of things that can be put into place now to respond and prepare for the adaptations and to strengthen practice next year – whether these are drawn from the updates or from your own learning across this academic year.

 

Further information & resources

Related articles

Keeping Children Safe in Education: Key changes and actions for schools

Keeping children safe in education: Key changes and priorities for the year ahead

Safeguarding: Keeping Children Safe in Education