Safeguarding Bulletin - 15 April 2026
Helping Families - what staff need to know webinar booking now...
The KCSiE 2026 consultation sets out that staff need to know about responses to absence and how to access family help (both from your setting and local agencies). It also sets out that staff should know threshold criteria for child protection assessment pathways, children in care and the procedures and processes for children within the youth secure estate and disabled children.
This session takes DSLs through the requirements and how we can effectively deliver sessions within early years settings, schools and colleges to ensure all staff have clarity about how to respond to young people and families. We’ll consider how these processes link into effective work with families and provide valuable materials to support you in delivering this to your staff teams.
Scheduled for May 8th, 12pm-1pm, this webinar is £10 + VAT, and includes a session recording and slides. Click the button to sign up.
Book now: Friday 8 May @ 12pm - 1pm
Free Webinar: Prevention, necessity and proportionality - the implications of the new guidance on restrictive interventions
New date added due to popular demand: 30th April.
The new guidance for restrictive interventions, including use of reasonable force in schools in England will be effective from April 2026. This guidance illustrates how and when school staff can use restrictive interventions including reasonable force and seclusion to keep pupils and others safe.
This free webinar will look at the implications of the new guidance, how this integrates with the RSHE guidance, KCSiE, and looks at the lessons learnt from other sectors. Our March webinars filled up quickly so click the button to reserve your space for 30th April.
Book now: Thursday, 30 April @ 4pm - 5pm
Teachers call for new training on misogynistic abuse
Teachers are calling for new forms of behaviour management training to deal with the impact of the “manosphere” in schools, after a survey highlighted the rise of misogynistic abuse in the classroom.
A union poll shows that NASUWT members are experiencing rising misogynistic abuse. In its latest survey for 2026, 23.4 per cent of female teachers reported that they had been subject to misogyny from a pupil in the past year, up from 22.2 per cent in 2025, 19.5 per cent in 2024 and 17.4 per cent in 2023.
On May 8th, our new training course, Insights into Working with Young Men in Schools - Masculinity, Misogyny and the Challenges they Face, explores some of the societal, online and other starting points in relation to the impact of so-called toxic masculinity, misogyny and in some cases Incel within our learning communities, and the ways in which education has and continues to address them.
Schools in knife crime hotspots to get targeted support
The Office for National Statistics reports that in the 12 months to March 2025, 52 young people under 25 were killed with a knife or sharp instrument. This included 14 victims who were aged under 16 years old. Carrying and using knives are highly correlated with all forms of extra-familial harm, including gangs and exploitation. Control, violence and threats of harm cause fear and pain across families and communities.
The Government has announced the ‘Safety In & Around Schools Partnership’, which will train school leaders in up to 250 schools on the risk of knife crime and develop "local solutions to improve pupil safety and prevent serious violence". More intensive and tailored support will be provided to around 50 of the involved schools, the government said. Schools will be selected using hyperlocal mapping which will identify areas where knife crime is at its highest during school commuting hours.
The Partnership is being run by charity the Youth Endowment Fund, which is a trusted and authoritative source on youth research and evidence-led action to prevent violence affecting children and young people.
New child exploitation disruption resources
The Children’s Society’s national Prevention Programme has been commissioned by the Home Office to develop national best practice guidance and a self-assessment for multi-agency practice in disrupting child exploitation – the resources have just been released.
Child sexual abuse and exploitation, particularly group-based offending, is one of the most complex and destructive harms faced by children. Perpetrators may use multiple forms of manipulation, control and coercion whilst subjecting children to multiple forms of abuse.
Safeguarding children from exploitation requires actions to protect individual victims but it also needs proactive actions to identify and disrupt perpetrators, unsafe environments, and the wider systems that enable exploitation to occur. Effective disruption requires all professionals to understand their role, share information openly, and work in a child-centred, non-victim-blaming way.
The National best practice guidance and Introduction to disrupting exploitation documents would be of high interest to any safeguarding lead. The best practice guidance also has links to lots of other useful resources and sources of information.
Explore Safeguarding Network's child exploitation resources
PANTS resources for schools and teachers
NSPCC Learning has published a new series of Talk PANTS videos. Talk PANTS is a campaign to keep children safe from sexual abuse and includes a range of resources to help teachers, schools and early years settings deliver age-appropriate sessions with children.
The new videos are funded by The Executive Office in Northern Ireland and include an introduction to what Talk PANTS is. There are videos for use with children aged between 3 to 5, 5 to 7, and 7 to 11; as well as children who have special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) and additional support needs (ASN).
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