Keeping Children Safe in Education - September 2023

The DfE has uploaded the latest version of Keeping Children Safe in Education ready for implementation in September 2023. You can find it here: Keeping Children Safe in Education 2023

Filtering and Monitoring

The government has made few changes this year. The key topic to be aware of is around the implementation of the newly published standards for 'Filtering and Monitoring'. In particular, all staff are to understand their role in this and DSLs are expected to have the 'lead responsibility'. The standards can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/meeting-digital-and-technology-standards-in-schools-and-colleges/filtering-and-monitoring-standards-for-schools-and-colleges

Other changes

• Guidance about children 'missing education' now talks about children who are 'absent' from education, particularly on repeat occasions or for prolonged periods.
• The guidance now talks about children and young people who are 'susceptible' to being drawn into terrorism, rather than being 'vulnerable' to being drawn into terrorism. (Prevent Duty update)
• Following the end of the work of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA), the obligation to 'preserve records' for the inquiry has now been removed. (Investigation reports)

New guidance

• Where schools are used for non-school activities, those providers are expected to meet the guidance in Keeping Children Safe in Out of School Settings (see paragraph 167)
• If schools receive allegations related to an incident that 'happened when an individual or organisation was using their school premises for the purposes of running activities for children...the school should follow their [own] safeguarding policies and procedures, including informing the LADO'. (see paragraph 377)
• Since February 2023 it has also been a crime to carry out any conduct whose purpose is to cause a child to marry before their eighteenth birthday, even if violence, threats or another form of coercion are not used. As with the existing forced marriage law, this applies to non-binding, unofficial 'marriages' as well as legal marriages. (see page 155) (Legal age increases to 18)

What to do next

1. Look towards updating your school's Safeguarding and Child Protection Policy 
2. Ensure that you have a clear plan to implement the Filtering and Monitoring Standards (Bearing in mind the standards say that that schools should already have implemented them.) Some useful links can be found here: www.safeguarding.info/filtering
3. Add Filtering and Monitoring to your staff CPD programme
4. Ensure that the governing body/trustees understand their role in Filtering and Monitoring
5. For DSLs, ensure that 'lead responsibility' for Filtering and Monitoring is added to your job description (and you understand what it means)
6. Ensure that you add to (and check) out-of-hours hire contracts for organisations working with children that the meet the expectations in Keeping Children Safe in Out-of-schools Settings
7. Ensure that you add to out-of-hours hire contracts for organisations working with children that in the event of an incident, the school will follow its own policy, including informing the LADO

Remember that the new edition of KCSIE does not come into force until September 2023, and that occasionally changes are made during the interim period, especially to paragraph numbering.

Click here to download Keeping Children Safe in Education 2023