On this page…

• Summary of Keeping Children Safe in Education 2020

• Keeping Children Safe in Education 2020 staff briefing

• Keeping Children Safe in Education 2020 quiz

• In-house safeguarding training – planning ahead

• Keeping Children Safe in Education DSL webinar

• Free fortnightly safeguarding bulletin

• Keeping Children Safe in Education resources

Summary of key changes

Key changes in part 1:

• The proposal in the draft for some staff to have a shortened read of the guidance has been dropped – the same requirements as 2019 apply (Part 1 and Annex A).
• There is rewording of the guidance (para 21) around extra-familial harm, removing the links to contextual safeguarding but emphasising that “children may be vulnerable to multiple harms including (but not limited to) sexual exploitation, criminal exploitation, and serious youth violence.” Para 28 goes on to add emphasis on Child Sexual Exploitation and Child Criminal Exploitation.
• Children’s mental health is added to the guidance, ensuring that staff should consider when this might become a safeguarding concern.
• Concerns about staff are widened to include supply staff, reflecting changes in Part 4 that schools hold a responsibility to fully explore concerns about supply staff.
• Where a head teacher is also the sole proprietor of an independent school it is now mandatory to report to the LADO.

Part 2:

• There is a link to the National Police Chief’s Council guidance on when to call the police to ensure calls are appropriate and timely.
• The guidance refers to the Relationships Education, Relationships & Sex Education and Health education guidance and the safeguarding implications of this. We’ve a separate page on this important area.
• The emphasis has shifted from simply “allegations” to thinking about “safeguarding concerns and allegations”. Settings should have an approach that recognises concerns tend to grow and may be apparent before someone makes an allegation.
• The particular vulnerability of children who have a social worker is recognised. This relates to the research on “What Works in Education for Children who have social workers“.
• Findings from the Children in Need review, ‘Improving the educational outcomes of Children in Need of help and protection’ contains further information; the conclusion of the review, ‘Help, protection, education’ sets out action Government is taking to support this.
• The guidance notes (para 113) “Schools and colleges have an important role to play in supporting the mental health and well being of their pupils” and asks that settings have in place clear systems and processes to identify these needs, and to consider when they become a safeguarding concern. DSLs may wish to familiarise themselves with the guidance on Mental health & behaviour in schools, particularly Chapter 4 which talks about developing local partnerships and ensure they know how to access training for themselves and staff in their local area. The DfE highlight funding for a significant programme to train senior mental health leads and the roll out of the Link Programme.
• Much was removed from the draft 2020 guidance as the DfE recognise the immense pressures on schools in the summer of 2020. The changes had been informed by the Review of children in need last summer and no doubt will be coming on the horizon once life settles down. It is worth referring to the original draft 2020 guidance (February 2020) to see what is coming. More information can be found in the mental health and behaviour in schools guidance.

Part 3

• The only change in this section is the reference to statutory guidance on private fostering.

Part 4

• The responsibility to manage allegations about supply teachers is made clear, so they still ensure allegations are dealt with appropriately when they are not the employer. Schools cannot simply cease to use this teacher.Processes should be developed to manage this akin to the disciplinary procedure and the school should advise supply agencies of its process for managing allegations.
• A fourth bullet point has been added to the criteria for the LADO so schools must work with other agencies to investigate when who has worked at the school has “behaved or may have behaved in a way that indicates they may not be suitable to work with children“.

Annex A

• The potential for children to be exploited when missing education is emphasised. Staff need to be aware of your unauthorised absence and children missing from education procedures.
• Child criminal exploitation is defined and included, together with some of the indicators. Child sexual exploitation is very much seen through the lens of child criminal exploitation. A link is added to Child sexual exploitation: guide for practitioners.
• The wording around County Lines has been revised and improved.
• Wording around domestic abuse has been revised and improved. There is reference to Operation Encompass and the National Domestic Abuse Helpline with other references to the NSPCC, Refuge and SafeLives also added.
• Honour-based violence is better termed Honour-based abuse.
• A definition of terrorism has been added, a sentence amended to clarify radicalisation and a link made to the Channel guidance. There is a link to the Prevent elearning and additional guidance.
• Peer on peer abuse is amended to Peer on peer / child on child abuse, recognising that sometimes this abuse is not between peers.
• The Voyeurism (Offences) Act came into force on 12 April 2019 and so has now been referenced in the definition of ‘upskirting’.

Annex B

• DSLs should work closely with senior mental health leads.
• The order of wording around “Training should provide designated safeguarding leads with a good understanding of their own role, and the processes, procedures and responsibilities of other agencies, particularly children’s social care” has been corrected – it had slipped under a paragraph referring to ‘informal training’, so it is now clear your training needs to be up to the mark! We’ll be looking to run some skills sessions later in the year – join the Safeguarding Bulletin (below) for more information when these are ready.
• DSLs should help promote educational outcomes by working closely with their teachers and sharing information about their welfare, safeguarding and child protection concerns. We will be writing more on this area soon – it is good news and long overdue.
• The transfer of child protection files rules apply to in-year transfers.
• One other crucial area dropped from the draft guidance is Safeguarding Supervision for DSLs. Supervision, however, is still a requirement in the inspection framework and in Working Together so schools should look to implement this. Read our page on Safeguarding Supervision for more.

Annex C

• The section on online safety has been improved and links added.

There were no changes to the other sections.

Webinar & staff briefing powerpoint

We held a webinar on the 1st July 2020 covering the main changes and implications for schools and colleges and a tour of how Safeguarding Network’s resources might be useful in your setting. We recorded the webinar and you can access a copy of this and the materials used in the webinar for free here. 

Member only resources

Members have access to a Keeping Children Safe in Education 2020 audit tool which can support a report to SLT and Governors. There is also a full list of all the text changes in the new guidance.

To access these please log in, or if your school does not subscribe you can find out more details of membership here.