The role of school and college staff

6. “School and college staff are particularly important, as they are in a position to identify concerns early, provide help for children, promote children’s welfare and prevent concerns from escalating.” 

7. “All staff have a responsibility to provide a safe environment in which children can learn.” 

8. “All staff should be prepared to identify children who may benefit from early help. Early help means providing support as soon as a problem emerges at any point in a child’s life, from the foundation years through to the teenage years.” 

13. “All staff should be aware of systems within their school or college which support safeguarding, and these should be explained to them as part of staff induction. This should include the:

• child protection policy (which should amongst other things also include the policy and procedures to deal with child-on-child abuse)
• behaviour policy (which should include measures to prevent bullying, including cyberbullying, prejudice-based and discriminatory bullying)
• staff behaviour policy (sometimes called a code of conduct)…
• safeguarding response to children who go missing from education…and
• role of the designated safeguarding lead (including the identity of the designated safeguarding lead and any deputies).

“Copies of policies and a copy of Part one (or Annex A, if appropriate) of this document (KSCIE) should be provided to all staff at induction.”

17. “All staff should know what to do if a child tells them they are being abused, exploited, or neglected. Staff should know how to manage the requirement to maintain an appropriate level of confidentiality. This means only involving those who need to be involved, such as the designated safeguarding lead (or a deputy) and local authority children’s social care…”

Abuse and neglect

23. “All staff, but especially the designated safeguarding lead (and deputies), should consider whether children are at risk of abuse or exploitation in situations outside their families. Extra-familial harms take a variety of different forms and children can be vulnerable to multiple harms including (but not limited to) sexual abuse (including harassment and exploitation), domestic abuse in their own intimate relationships (teenage relationship abuse), criminal exploitation, serious youth violence, county lines, and radicalisation.”

24. “All staff should be aware that technology is a significant component in many safeguarding and wellbeing issues. Children are at risk of abuse and other risks online as well as face to face. In many cases, abuse will take place concurrently both online and offline. Children can also abuse other children online, this can take the form of abusive, harassing, and misogynistic/misandrist messages, the non-consensual sharing of indecent images, especially around chat groups, and the sharing of abusive images and pornography, to those who do not want to receive such content.”

Safeguarding issues

31. “All staff should have an awareness of safeguarding issues that can put children at risk of harm. Behaviours linked to issues such as drug taking and/or alcohol misuse, deliberately missing education, serious violence (including that linked to county lines), radicalisation and consensual and non-consensual sharing of nude and semi-nude images and/or videos can be signs that children are at risk…”

Child-on-child abuse

33. “All staff should understand that even if there are no reports in their schools or colleges it does not mean it is not happening, it may be the case that it is just not being reported. As such it is important if staff have any concerns regarding child-on-child abuse they should speak to their designated safeguarding lead (or a deputy).”

68. “All concerns, discussions and decisions made, and the reasons for those decisions, should be recorded in writing. This will also help if/when responding to any complaints about the way a case has been handled by the school or college. Information should be kept confidential and stored securely. It is good practice to keep concerns and referrals in a separate child protection file for each child.

“Records should include:
       • a clear and comprehensive summary of the concern
       • details of how the concern was followed up and resolved, and
       • a note of any action taken, decisions reached and the outcome.”

70. “It is important for children to receive the right help at the right time to address safeguarding risks, prevent issues escalating and to promote children’s welfare…”

94. “It is important that governing bodies and proprietors are aware that among other obligations, the Data Protection Act 2018, and the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) place duties on organisations and individuals to process personal information fairly and lawfully and to keep the information they hold safe and secure.”

95. “Governing bodies and proprietors should ensure they facilitate a whole school or college approach to safeguarding … Ultimately, all systems, processes and policies should operate with the best interests of the child at their heart.”

97. “The school’s or college’s safeguarding policies and procedures (some of which are listed below) should be transparent, clear, and easy to understand for staff, pupils, students, parents, and carers. Systems should be in place, and they should be well promoted, easily understood and easily accessible for children to confidently report, any form of abuse or neglect, knowing their concerns will be treated seriously, and knowing they can safely express their views and give feedback.”

115. “Information sharing is vital in identifying and tackling all forms of abuse and neglect… Schools and colleges have clear powers to share, hold and use information for these purposes.”

118. “It is important that governing bodies and proprietors are aware that among other obligations, the Data Protection Act 2018 and the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) place duties on organisations and individuals to process personal information fairly and lawfully and to keep the information they hold safe and secure.“

125. “In addition, all staff should receive regular safeguarding and child protection updates…to provide them with relevant skills and knowledge to safeguard children effectively.”

134. “Whilst it is essential that governing bodies and proprietors ensure that appropriate filters and monitoring systems are in place, they should be careful that ‘over blocking’ does not lead to unreasonable restrictions as to what children can be taught with regard to online teaching and safeguarding.”

135. “It is essential that children are safeguarded from potentially harmful and inappropriate online material. An effective whole school and college approach to online safety empowers a school or college to protect and educate pupils, students, and staff in their use of technology and establishes mechanisms to identify, intervene in, and escalate any concerns where appropriate.”

138. “Online safety and the school or college’s approach to it should be reflected in the child protection policy which, amongst other things, should include appropriate filtering and monitoring on school devices and school networks…”

141. “…governing bodies and proprietors should be doing all that they reasonably can to limit children’s exposure to…risks from the school’s or college’s IT system. As part of this process, governing bodies and proprietors should ensure their school or college has appropriate filters and monitoring systems in place and regularly review their effectiveness… Governing bodies and proprietors should consider the number of and age range of their children, those who are potentially at greater risk of harm and how often they access the IT system, along with the proportionality of costs versus safeguarding risks.”

142. ” …To support schools and colleges to meet this duty, the Department for Education has published filtering and monitoring standards which set out that schools and colleges should:

• identify and assign roles and responsibilities to manage filtering and monitoring systems.
• review filtering and monitoring provision at least annually.
• block harmful and inappropriate content without unreasonably impacting teaching

149. “Ofsted’s inspections of early years, schools and post-16 provision are carried out under: Ofsted’s Education Framework. Inspectors will always report on whether or not arrangements for safeguarding children and learners are effective.”

157. “Governing bodies and proprietors should ensure that their child protection policy includes:

• procedures to minimise the risk of child-on-child abuse
• the systems in place (and they should be well promoted, easily understood and easily accessible) for children to confidently report abuse, knowing their concerns will be treated seriously
• how allegations of child-on-child abuse will be recorded…”

170. “Whilst all children should be protected, it is important that governing bodies and proprietors recognise (and reflect in their policies and procedures) some groups of children are potentially at greater risk of harm than others (both online and offline).”

Responding to the report

467. “It is important to understand that children may not find it easy to tell staff about their abuse verbally. Children can show signs or act in ways that they hope adults will notice and react to. In some cases, the victim may not make a direct report. For example, a friend may make a report, or a member of school or college staff may overhear a conversation that suggests a child has been harmed or a child’s own behaviour might indicate that something is wrong. As per Part one of this guidance, if staff have any concerns about a child’s welfare, they should act on them immediately rather than wait to be told.”

“…Whilst the activities of the designated safeguarding lead can be delegated to appropriately trained deputies, the ultimate lead responsibility for child protection…remains with the designated safeguarding lead. This responsibility should not be delegated.”

“The critical importance of recording, holding, using and sharing information effectively is set out in Parts one, two and five of this document, and therefore the designated safeguarding lead should be equipped to … be able to keep detailed, accurate, secure written records of concerns and referrals and understand the purpose of this record-keeping.”