Staff training - as easy as level 1,2,3...?

This is part of our safeguarding insights section.  Our aim is to provide you with a broader understanding of a specific topic through a researched and referenced article that contributes towards your professional development and ensures that you can support your staff accordingly.

15 minute read

DSLs and Safeguarding Teams

This article explores safeguarding training in detail, the dangers of assuming that staff need a safeguarding ‘reminder’ and gives detailed consideration to how you can ensure that your safeguarding training throughout the year is as useful and impactful as possible.

Safeguarding Network provides Designated Safeguarding Leads with monthly training materials to deliver in-house training to their staff, covering every area of Keeping Children Safe in Education. Each pack includes presentations, quizzes and scenarios and makes the task of ensuring all staff know, understand and can apply the guidance much less time-consuming, while ensuring it is robust and systematic. We also offer training on a wide range of topics, provide safeguarding audits and safeguarding supervision and have a wide-ranging free resource base.

As an experienced trainer and safeguarding adviser, I have developed and delivered many safeguarding courses for professionals in schools, colleges, early years settings and within the Local Authority. Safeguarding is a dynamic, changing picture and training must be one step ahead of the game at all times. I never deliver the same training twice, it is always updated with new learning every time I visit a school or train a group of Designated Safeguarding Leads. Training should be relevant to the local area, to the school to the children it is designed to protect.

How can I develop training that will make a difference?

Firstly, it is essential that the trainer is aware of developments in policy, practice, research and most importantly, context, to make sure that the training that is delivered is as useful and engaging as possible. Training should have an absolute focus on equipping professionals with the skills to notice and understand issues that put children at risk of harm in order for them to act to keep children safe. In this article I have outlined the key considerations to make when planning or sourcing training and contextualised these within the guidance and research on effective continuous professional development (CPD).

What are the statutory requirements?

It is important to consider the statutory requirements for safeguarding training within educational settings to ensure that you are successfully meeting them. The following paragraphs are taken from Keeping Children Safe in Education (2019).

Training for all staff

14. All staff should receive appropriate safeguarding and child protection training which is regularly updated. In addition, all staff should receive safeguarding and child protection updates (for example, via email, e-bulletins and staff meetings), as required, and at least annually, to provide them with relevant skills and knowledge to safeguard children effectively.

 Training for the Designated Safeguarding Lead

66. The designated safeguarding lead and any deputies should undergo training to provide them with the knowledge and skills required to carry out the role. The training should be updated every two years.

67. In addition to their formal training as set out above, their knowledge and skills should be updated (for example via e-bulletins, meeting other designated safeguarding leads, or taking time to read and digest safeguarding developments), at regular intervals, and at least annually, to keep up with any developments relevant to their role.

 Training for governors, proprietors and management committees

4. Governing bodies and proprietors (unless otherwise stated, includes management committees) must ensure that they comply with their duties under legislation. They must have regard to this guidance, ensuring that policies, procedures and training in their schools or colleges are effective and comply with the law at all times.

Governors, proprietors and management committees also have responsibility for ensuring that all staff read at least Part 1 of Keeping Children Safe in Education (KCSIE) and ensuring that there are mechanisms in place to assist staff in understanding and discharging their responsibilities under Part 1 of KCSIE.

 In addition to this, schools are guided by their Local Authority and the Local Safeguarding Children Partnership and must ensure that they are satisfying local arrangements for safeguarding training. Some local authorities or Local Safeguarding Children Partnerships (LSCPs) will advise on what to include, some will provide slides or resources to use and others will leave this decision up to the schools. All LSCPs will audit schools to determine if training requirements are being met, usually through a self-assessment audit known as a Section 11 Audit (referring to the Children Act 2004) or a Section 175/157 Audit (referring to the Education Act 2011). However, as this is locally decided, the approaches taken and the amount of support given to schools vary considerably across the country.

• Has every member of staff received safeguarding and child protection training? Can you evidence this?
• When was your last refresher training course? Can you evidence that you have been trained?
• Have Deputy DSLs been trained to the same level as the DSL?
• Have your governors received school-specific safeguarding training?
• Have governors been trained to ensure that safeguarding policies, procedures and training are effective and comply with the law (safeguarding-specific governor training)?
• What mechanisms are in place to ensure that staff understand their safeguarding responsibilities?

It’s not as simple as level 1, 2 and 3

Ensuring staff have ‘safeguarding training’ is open to interpretation. While staff may have a certificate in the safeguarding file with a signed staff list to show they all attended their annual ‘refresher’, does your Child Protection policy set out the level to which staff are trained? In Keeping Children Safe in Education the required outcome is clear but the detail of what the training should include is missing. This leads to huge variation in the amount of time each school dedicates to safeguarding training, the level of expertise of both the DSL and the staff in the school and the topics and areas that each school chooses to focus on. So, how do make sure your training covers what it needs to?

Safeguarding Children Partnerships (or LSCBs as they were then) are tasked with ensuring staff are adequately trained in their area. Some developed a set of levels, which don’t necessarily align between different areas, others adopted the previous government guidance. Working Together to Safeguard Children (2006, then with further detail in 2010) outlined the level of training that professionals should have according to their job role and the amount of contact they have with children. Staff were categorised into ‘groups’ and the detail of what should be included in their training was set out in a table. This made it easy for schools, Local Safeguarding Children Boards (now Local Safeguarding Children Partnerships) and training providers to develop and advertise standardised courses and schools knew what they had signed up for. At this point, DSLs were seen as ‘Group 5’ practitioners and the wider staff body in schools were ‘Group 3’.

Target groups to include members of statutory, voluntary, independent and community organisations	Suggested training content	Suggested training methods	Employer, LSCB and CT responsibilities
Group 3 Members of the workforce who work predominantly with children, young people and/or their parents/carers and who could potentially contribute to assessing, planning, intervening and reviewing the needs of a child and parenting capacity where there are safeguarding concerns. For example, paediatricians, GPs, youth workers, those working in the early years sector, residential staff, midwives, school nurses, health visitors, sexual health staff, teachers, probation staff, sports club welfare officers, those working with adults in, for example, learning disability, mental health, alcohol and drug misuse services, those working in community play schemes.	The above plus: Working together to identify, assess and meet the needs of children where there are safeguarding concerns. The impact of parenting issues, such as domestic abuse, substance misuse on parenting capacity. Recognising the importance of family history and functioning. Working with children and family members, including addressing lack of co-operation and superficial compliance within the context of role.	Inter-agency training. In addition single-agency training and professional development related to specific role. Refresher training at least every 3 years.	The employer is responsible for organisation and delivery. The LSCB is responsible for ensuring that single and inter-agency training is provided and that it is reaching relevant staff within organisations. The LSCB is also responsible for quality assurance. Depending on local arrangements, the LSCB or Children’s Trust partners may take responsibility for the delivery of interagency training. The Children’s Trust Board is responsible for ensuring training is available to met identified needs.

Table taken from Working Together to Safeguard Children, 2010 (not current guidance)

 The table above is obsolete but we have included it to demonstrate where the idea of ‘groups’ or ‘levels’ has come from. Working Together 2013 was radically slimmed down (97 pages from 393), the national approach was lost and now Safeguarding Children Partnership and training providers refer to their training as Level 1, 2, 3 - or higher - but do not have standardised guidelines to ensure that what they are covering meets the requirements for effective safeguarding practice.

• Be clear what your staff need to know and reflect this in your child protection policy
• Check the Safeguarding Children Partnership requirements for your area
• Ensure your trainer understands what you need delivered

This also applies to Designated Safeguarding Lead (DSL) training. Approaches vary from a three-day course specified to one Safeguarding Children Partnership’s requirements to a generic course online, yet both receive the same ‘level’ of certificate. Not all training courses are created equal and although online training seems like a quick fix, the purpose of training is to effectively care for the staff, children and families in your school network, as well as meeting requirements in guidance and those set out by Ofsted.

• Specify the safeguarding training requirements for your DSL and deputies, together with other key pastoral staff and school leaders
• Think through what you and your team need to know to confidently manage concerns, train your staff and put in place the strategic building blocks of a strong safeguarding culture – aligning the training to your DSL job description is a good idea.
• Quality assure the training you receive and the training you deliver – does it make a difference?

As well as the issue of Designated Safeguarding Lead initial and refresher training, this also impacts the training delivered to all staff. Although the Working Together 2010 guidance referred to training for staff who work regularly or intensively with children as Level 3, it is often referred to as ‘Level 1’ training. With no concrete criteria of what to include in this, how can we be certain that schools are effectively training their staff with the right information to make a difference?

Why is this important?

 In order for schools to safeguard children effectively, all staff must understand that safeguarding is their responsibility. The ever-growing list of topics within Keeping Children Safe in Education means that it is difficult to choose which areas to focus on for a short training session on the first day of term (for example). It is also tempting to dig out the same safeguarding training year on year and modify it slightly with new guidance and use it as a ‘refresher’.

It is dangerous practice to;

• assume that staff are aware of safeguarding issues, school processes and procedures just because they have a refresher session once a year;
• deliver a whole-staff safeguarding training session and assume that staff know what to do; and/or
• assume staff understand how statutory guidance applies to them without checking.

It isn’t enough to email your safeguarding policy to staff and accept an email as confirmation that they have read it and take no further action to check how effective this process has been. 

Just as you would do with your younger learners, it is important to check that learning has been understood and embedded. Encourage staff to apply their learning to practice situations to check that they are comfortable and familiar with what they need to do.

Numerous serious case reviews highlight training either as an issue, or to shine a light on the fact that strong and effective training in school had a positive impact on outcomes for children, despite failures or poor practice in other areas. As well as the direct impact that staff training can have on children, schools are also held to account in this area through the Ofsted Inspection Framework.

“There are clear and effective arrangements for staff development and training in respect of the protection and care of children and learners.” (Inspecting safeguarding in early years, education and skills settings, 2019).

Ofsted inspectors examine staff training materials - slides, handouts, registers and follow-up quizzes - to determine if the arrangements are clear and effective. This has implications for judgements around leadership and management, as well as safeguarding across the school and is another reason for schools to ensure that they train staff properly and draw on appropriate external expertise.

What should you consider when planning your training?

With the context of safeguarding training established, it is now important to consider how to plan training going forward.

• How often do you re-visit training from your annual session throughout the rest of the year?
• How did you check that staff had learnt and retained the information that you needed them to?
• How could you evidence your training if you were asked to by an Ofsted inspector?
• How do you know if staff have really ‘read and understood’ statutory documents?

There are a number of things to think about when planning training and it shouldn’t necessarily begin with the content of the training itself. The most important thing to consider, as with a lesson plan or a scheme of work, is what you want the learners - in this case your staff - to take away from the session or sessions. Then you need to decide how best to deliver this to make sure that it is relevant, interesting and most importantly, positively affects their practice.

A series of NSPCC reports published in 2019 reviewed teacher training literature and completed a needs assessments with teachers from both mainstream and special primary schools to determine how best to develop teachers’ skills in relation to teaching preventative education. These reports identified seven characteristics of effective continuing professional development (CPD), which can be applied to safeguarding training:

Image taken from McElearney, A. and Radcliffe, D. (2019) Developing teachers, supporting children: Learning from international research and good practice: a resource for schools (PDF). London: NSPCC

The findings have been summarised below and I have added additional prompt questions to support you in applying this research to your safeguarding training.

A focus on student outcomes: research suggests that student outcomes should be the starting point for, and ongoing focus of all teacher development.

• Do your staff know why they are reading key documents and completing this training?
• Can you include anonymised case studies that link to your context?
• Are staff aware of what is at stake if they do not act to safeguard children effectively?

Collaboration: collaborative work contributes positively to teachers’ knowledge, confidence, self-efficacy, enthusiasm and commitment.

• Have you built in time for staff discussion and collaboration?
• Are there opportunities within the school for individuals to develop their professional skills in this area?

Reflection: setting time aside for teachers to think about their learning and make connections to their practice has been identified as an important instrument of change in teacher professional development.

• Is adequate time given to safeguarding training?
• Is reflection time built in, with follow up sessions for smaller groups to ask more questions?
• Can staff approach the DSL with questions if they are unsure of content covered in the training?

Specialist expertise: effective CPD draws on support from experts. This works best when the experts come from outside teachers’ existing setting.

• When did you last invite an expert in to train staff or present on a topical issue?
• How do you work with other safeguarding professionals outside of school?
• Is all safeguarding training delivered by the DSL? Could others with expertise share learning related to safeguarding?

Sustained over time: effective professional development is sustained over time and includes multiple opportunities for teachers to engage in active learning and make connections with existing practice.

• Consider your ‘safeguarding calendar’. Have you included opportunities throughout the year to revisit learning?
• What mechanisms are in place to build on safeguarding expertise over time?

A supportive school culture: school leaders can foster effective professional development by being open to new approaches and encouraging innovation and experimentation. They should also set aside time and resources for CPD.

• Is all training delivered face-to-face, in whole-school sessions? How could you adapt this?
• How do you use technology to deliver safeguarding training?
• Have you considered ‘microlearning’ techniques?
• How do governors and proprietors assure themselves that safeguarding training is effective?

Incorporating models of effective practice: this provides teachers with a clear vision that they can work towards.

• Consider case studies that you have used. Do you model good practice by including cases where things have gone well?

Summary of findings from McElearney, A. and Radcliffe, D. (2019) Developing teachers, supporting children: Learning from international research and good practice: a resource for schools (PDF). London: NSPCC

The study identifies that effective adult learning methods include coaching and mentoring, professional learning communities, lesson study, online learning and, increasingly, blended learning that combines online learning with other approaches. There is a robust and growing evidence base to support their application within the context of effective teacher professional development (Thurlings and den Brok, 2017; Darling-Hammond et al, 2017; Means et al., 2013). As such, it is important that you consider a wide range of approaches, activities and methods of delivery when developing your safeguarding training.

Your annual refresher training for staff should focus on the key tenets of Keeping Children Safe in Education, Working Together to Safeguard Children and your own safeguarding policy. Further sessions will be more responsive to your context and it is helpful to include a range of methods of delivery to continually keep safeguarding high on staff agenda.

It is also important that staff read the sections of Keeping Children Safe in Education that are relevant to their role. All staff should read Part 1 and Annex A, but other sections are directed specifically at governors (Part 2), or those involved in recruitment (Part 3), for example and should be part of their induction and/or refresher training.

The Safeguarding Network have a detailed two year plan and associated resources to support schools in this, or you may choose to develop your own training offer. However, there are a number of learning theories that you can draw on to assist in the development of relevant, interesting training that is tailored to an audience of adult learners, if you prefer to create your own resources.

Experiential Learning (Kolb’s Learning Cycle, 1984)

David Kolb asserted that individuals learn through discovery and experience. The ‘Experiential Learning Cycle’ demonstrates the process of assimilating learning from the concrete, to reflection, to abstract conceptualisation and then trying and testing out what has been learned. This is a key tenet in reflective supervision and can also be applied to training.

Kolb believes that learning cannot happen when participants watch, or read. They must be actively involved in activities in order to be able to progress through the Learning Cycle.

In terms of safeguarding training, it is often the case studies that people have discussed or the scenarios for investigation that stick in participants’ minds. When designing training, you should consider how these steps could be included and try to avoid slides of information delivered to a large number of participants with little opportunity for discussion and reflection.

Microlearning

Microlearning is an emerging concept closely linked to technology. It surmises that learning can be effective when it is presented in small chunks, usually through a device such as a laptop, phone or iPad.

When I visit schools to complete safeguarding reviews, something that is often lacking is the follow up to safeguarding training. There is a detailed training session in September and briefings throughout the year, but no assessment is made of whether staff have really taken the learning on board. Microlearning could be useful for revisiting key concepts (the Female Genital Mutilation mandatory reporting guidelines, or definitions of abuse, for example) and then delivering a quiz to check that learning has been absorbed. It is up to governors and proprietors to ensure that a wide range of mechanisms are used to check that staff are able to fulfil their safeguarding responsibilities under Keeping Children Safe in Education (2019).

Both of these strategies open up ways to diversify the ‘mechanisms’ used to ensure staff are able to fulfil their safeguarding responsibilities. It isn’t just about training, you should also think about the ways that you continually develop practice throughout the year.

For example, you may include;

• Quizzes throughout the year to check understanding
• Newsletters or bulletins sent out to staff over email
• Discussion of safeguarding or pastoral topics within the curriculum
• Case studies
• Posters or displays with key information for staff

There are endless ways to continually up-skill staff, help them to feel confident and by extension, create a culture of safeguarding. It can be a challenge to plan and organise this throughout the school and across the year, but it will lead to high quality, effective safeguarding practice.

• How could you include active learning strategies in your training to help staff assimilate content?
• Do you use technology to check staff understanding of safeguarding concepts?
• How could you build microlearning strategies into your annual safeguarding calendar?
• What mechanisms (other than training) do you currently use to up-skill staff?

What should I include in staff safeguarding training?

All staff are required to undertake annual safeguarding refresher training. This can take place at any point throughout the year, although it is commonly delivered at the start of the Autumn Term. As discussed earlier in the article, it is sensible for refresher training to focus on identifying types of abuse, statutory guidance, local procedures (your safeguarding policy) and key issues relevant to your setting.

An annual or biannual course does not meet the requirements of Keeping Children Safe in Education, nor is it the way we teach anything else in our schools. There are over 40 areas in the guidance that staff should know, understand and be able to apply from recognising the signs of domestic abuse through to modern slavery or online safety. Training, especially on skills that are not commonly used by most staff, must be regular and having a systematic and structured approach increases the likelihood that staff respond robustly when it matters most.

For the rest of the year, you should consider contextual safeguarding issues and the topics covered in Keeping Children Safe in Education and plan a strategy that will ensure staff have a good grounding in these issues. Safeguarding Network members have access to a two-year rolling safeguarding curriculum with training resources on each area tied to key dates in the safeguarding calendar. There are presentations, quizzes and scenarios to create interesting and dynamic conversations about each topic. We keep the materials up to date and quality assured so that our DSLs have something they can rely on and personalise to their setting.

This is supported by the NSPCC briefing paper ‘Summary of risk factors and learning for improved practice around the education sector' . This paper summarises key training takeaways based on learning from a wide range of Serious Case Reviews. The paper states that;

• Both staff and pupils need to be able to recognise the signs of abuse and be clear about what action they should take if they are worried;
• All staff should be able to identify the signs of sexual, emotional, physical abuse, neglect, including sexual exploitation and sexual bullying;
• Teachers should also understand the impact of abuse, neglect and poor parenting on children’s welfare and have knowledge of children’s attachment behaviour and developmental milestones;
• Staff need training in working with difficult families who refuse to co-operate with professionals.

These areas are the foundations on which you can build staff knowledge of the wide range of specific safeguarding issues that are featured in Keeping Children Safe in Education and those identified as priorities by your Local Safeguarding Children Partnership. As you can see, these are more extensive then traditional ‘Level 1’ training and highlight the fact that requirements have moved on significantly as more extensive research is published.

Consider the following grid as a way to organise your training offer over the course of the academic year, with some examples of areas you might include. It is important to remember that there this a difference between induction training and annual refresher training - you don’t have to cover everything in your annual refresher but should use your expertise (or that of an external trainer or consultant) to select what is most useful for staff.

What is should staff cover annually?*	What could staff learn about through the year?*	What extra content would be useful to share?*
The name and role of the DSL	In depth training on key safeguarding issues	National safeguarding issues
The signs and symptoms of abuse	Local safeguarding issues	Additional training from external specialists (e.g. Prevent)
How to refer or report concerns in school	Feedback from training attended by the Designated Safeguarding Lead	Feedback from local Serious Case Reviews
Local safeguarding procedures	Matters that arise at different times - e.g. issues with domestic violence at Christmas or learning from incidents/near misses in your setting	Recommendations of topical TV or radio programmes for staff professional development

*Lists are for illustrative purposes, should be adapted for your context and are not exhaustive.

Once you have developed a list of essential, desirable and additional topics, you can then start to plan an annual calendar of training. Think about times within each week that you can include training and vary the way this it is delivered. The mechanisms through which this is delivered should be discussed with your headteacher and governors (or equivalent), as they have responsibility for ensuring that this is effective and you will need their support. Training does not have to be developed and delivered solely by the Designated Safeguarding Lead or pastoral team and can include external trainers or resources developed by others.

Why is external training helpful?

 In terms of the ‘mechanisms’ for training, it is important to think more widely than in-house delivery. Safeguarding Leads often deliver whole-school safeguarding and child protection training to staff annually. Whilst this can be very effective and can meet the statutory guidelines, essentially you can only teach what you know and you don’t always know what you don’t know! Previously DSLs were asked to outlined key aspects of safeguarding to the rest of their staff, but now a considerably greater depth of knowledge is required. To ensure that you are provided the most up to date information, it is beneficial to invite external trainers in to school throughout the year.

This is supported by NSPCC research. The study, ‘Developing teachers, supporting children: Learning from international research and good practice: a resource for schools’, McElearney, A. and Radcliffe, D. (2019), states that…

…Effective teacher professional learning is usually supported by some form of specialist input in terms of information or advice. This can take the form of instruction, modelling, coaching or scaffolding by colleagues/other professionals with specialist knowledge or direct engagement by teachers with research and theory. This specialist input is most effective when drawn from outside teachers’ existing setting. It supports teacher learning by making theory and evidence more accessible and encourages teachers to challenge individual assumptions and organisational norms and culture.

As such, you might wish to outsource your annual refresher training to a safeguarding trainer, or consider inviting other experts in throughout the year. Examples of training you may wish to consider include;

• Training from specialist organisations on online safety;
• Local Authority Prevent training;
• External training delivered by an expert safeguarding adviser;
• Police briefings around contextual safeguarding issues.

There are many options for bringing in external trainers and it is essential that training is quality controlled and from a reputable source. You will already have an ‘external speakers’ policy in place and any trainer that it invited into school should be subject to checks under this policy.

Safeguarding Children Partnerships have an extremely important role to play. SCPs have a duty to join up the practice of local agencies and are well-placed to ensure your setting is aware of local developments and local risks. Training providers such as So Safeguarding and Safeguarding Network also provide external training for staff teams, governors and your DSLs.

What to look for in an external trainer

• An external trainer should have past links to education, the police or Children’s Services and have experience of delivering training to adults. Ask them for referees.
• The trainer should be adequately trained and continue to work within the field of safeguarding and child protection alongside their role as an independent trainer. Ask about their qualifications, their CPD and to describe some of the materials they will deliver.
• As a visitor to your school, you must check that they are reputable and reliable, in line with your external speaker policy.

There are lots of companies and individuals offering safeguarding training in schools. Word of mouth is a good way to find reputable trainers, or enquire with your Local Authority - they may be able to recommend sources of support and guidance. Overall, it is important to ensure that you have a balanced training offer, drawing on appropriate internal and external expertise to make sure that all staff have been equipped with the skills to safeguard children in their care.

Conclusion

As you can see, the original idea of ‘levelled’ training, or grouping staff to determine how much information they need has been adapted and built on over time and there is greater reliance on the DSL to make a judgement about what constitutes adequate training. Research and guidance show that staff are now required to continually maintain and develop their skills and knowledge.. Although the DSL takes overall responsibility and has the most detailed external training, there is a move towards the rest of the staff body having specific knowledge on a wide range of issues, for example the emphasis that all staff should be able to recognise and respond to peer on peer abuse. Ultimately this is to make sure that they are equipped with the skills and knowledge to protect children in their care to the best of their ability and is a very valuable thing, but not easy to maintain across a wide staff body.

I have discussed a number of challenges here and offered some solutions to resolve them but the most important learning from this article can be summarised into the following main points.

1. Safeguarding training should be regular, detailed and continue throughout the year.
2. It should be delivered in a range of ways to make it interesting to the audience
3. It is essential that you seek external support, advice and expertise to make sure that your safeguarding training is as good as it can be
4. Always follow up training with staff to ensure it has had the desired impact

Training is something that I know has a huge impact on safeguarding in organisations and it is a significant undertaking, requiring a great deal of expertise. It is a fundamental aspect of effective safeguarding practice and when it is thorough, delivered well and planned in across the year it can have a significant, beneficial impact on the school and most importantly, the children that we work with.