From September 1, 2022, education settings will have to abide by the new Keeping Children Safe in Education (KCSIE) guidance - which contains several notable additional requirements that schools need to follow.

The Department for Education has - after consultation with the sector - updated the KCSIE with the aim of improving the approach to safeguarding in schools.

With an extra 13 pages of guidance compared with the current document, it is not a light read. To ensure compliance, you will need to look at your policies and procedures, and see how they match with the new guidance, making the appropriate changes where required.

Here are the key changes you need to know about:

1. Time constraints added to pupil data transfer

On page 32, paragraph 121, new text has been added to include a definitive timeframe for the transfer of files for when children leave the school.

Specifically, the new guidance states:

“Where children leave the school or college, the designated safeguarding lead should ensure their child protection file is transferred to the new school or college as soon as possible, and within 5 days for an in-year transfer or within the first 5 days of the start of a new term to allow the new school or college to have support in place for when the child arrives.” [Our emphasis]

Slightly confusingly, these time additions are not featured in the corresponding section in the current KCSIE guidance (paragraph 112) but the five-day rule is mentioned later, on page 146, around information sharing.

As such, it appears that the update is intended to make it clear that the five-day rule is in place and ensure schools are aware of the need to carry out prompt data transfers.

As this will be live from September, it also means current Year 11 pupils awaiting confirmed destinations based on their GCSE grades will be covered by the new guidance.

This might cause problems, cautions designated safeguarding lead (DSL) and welfare officer Thomas Michael. “The five-day deadline will be tricky for schools where different systems are in place or deal with a large number of students,” he says. “The big challenge will be Year 11s, whose destinations are often not confirmed initially, and are subject to change.”

However, he says, it’s a welcome change to make this requirement front and centre in the new guidance if it results in a push towards more modern methods of record keeping.

“I’ve had experience of paper-based files becoming lost in the system and arriving years after the pupil has started,” he recalls.

2. The need for pupils to have an ‘appropriate adult’ during police investigations

In the annexed information at the end of KCSIE, on page 162, under the subheading “working with others”, a small but crucial change has been made to one of the bullet points.

“[DSLs should]…liaise with the headteacher or principal to inform him or her of issues - especially ongoing enquiries under section 47 of the Children Act 1989 and police investigations. This should include being aware of the requirement for children to have an Appropriate Adult. Further information can be found in the Statutory guidance - PACE Code C 2019.” [Our emphasis]

PACE Code C 2019 details the role a person undertakes when acting as the “appropriate adult” (usually a parent, guardian or social worker) while a student is being questioned or detained by the police.

It includes an expectation that the appropriate adult will “support, advise and assist” the young person, and also “observe whether the police are acting properly and fairly to respect [the young person’s] rights and entitlements, and inform an officer of the rank of inspector or above if they consider that they are not”.

This addition was likely prompted by the recommendations made in the Child Q safeguarding practice review, conducted by the City of London and Hackney Safeguarding Children Partnership.

The lack of an appropriate adult was one of the key failings noted in the review when it stated: “It is likely that the importance of the appropriate-adult role was insufficiently explained to either Child Q or the school staff present.”

It is clearly not only an issue in the case of Child Q - the review pointed out that a briefing note in 2015, published by Just for Kids Law and Children’s Rights Alliance for England, stated that 45 per cent of strip searches of children took place with no appropriate adult present.

Nikki Cunningham-Smith, an assistant headteacher in Gloucestershire, says the Child Q case has highlighted the clear “gap of understanding of processes” around what rights a child has and the importance of an appropriate adult. Moves to address this are to be welcomed, she says, as, “a lack of knowledge will naturally lead to a lack of challenge”.

3. Online checks for new staff

As expected from the consultation, the new KCSIE includes recommendations for potential new staff to be subject to a “digital screening” process prior to interview. On page 53, paragraph 220, the instruction reads:

“As part of the shortlisting process, schools and colleges should consider carrying out an online search as part of their due diligence on the shortlisted candidates. This may help identify any incidents or issues that have happened, and are publicly available online, which the school or college might want to explore with the applicant at interview.”

Although these searches are clearly not compulsory, the instruction that they “should consider” seems clear that this practice could become par for the course for education job applications.

When speaking to Tes about the prospect of online searches earlier this year, Simon Bevan, a partner in the education team at VWV Solicitors, warned that these checks should only be for checking suitability for working with children and not other areas of a person’s life.

“If the school looks at their profile and discovers information that doesn’t go to their suitability to work in a school, then that shouldn’t impact upon your recruitment decision,” he says. “You should only be making decisions on reasonable and objective information.”

Bevan says, for example, that if the checks uncover that a candidate is a parent or reveal their sexual orientation, ethnicity or another protected characteristic, that cannot be used as a basis for the decision whether or not to call them for an interview.

Helen Baxter, an administrative officer at a school in the Midlands, says that as well as performing the checks, schools will need to update their job advertisements and create a protocol for performing the checks.

“Schools will need to add to their application form that they will be checking their online presence,” she says.

“They should also create a matrix, where the parameters of what they’re searching for are recorded, to ensure that there is consistency in the range of what is searched for with each candidate.”

4. All governors to receive safeguarding training

On page 23, in the section titled: “Part two: The management of safeguarding”, a new paragraph appears on the responsibility for governors to receive safeguarding training.

“Governing bodies and proprietors should ensure that all governors and trustees receive appropriate safeguarding and child protection (including online) training at induction.

This training should equip them with the knowledge to provide strategic challenge to test and assure themselves that the safeguarding policies and procedures in place in schools and colleges are effective and support the delivery of a robust whole school approach to safeguarding. Their training should be regularly updated.”

This is an expected addition, which appeared in the version put out to consultation. Fiona Fearon, policy and projects manager at the National Governance Association, says her organisation welcomes this change, and emphasises the key role governors play in ensuring that schools and colleges are safe places for young people to learn.

Fearon also raises the important role governors play in holding school leaders accountable.

“[The addition] makes clear the importance of boards having a sound understanding of safeguarding so that they can support and challenge their school leaders effectively and with confidence,” she adds.

5. More detail on the effects of domestic abuse

On page 14, under “safeguarding issues”, a new paragraph appears titled “domestic abuse”, where more information has been included on what kind of impact victims of domestic abuse might experience:

“Domestic abuse…can [be] psychological, physical, sexual, financial or emotional. Children can be victims of domestic abuse. They may see, hear or experience the effects of abuse at home and/or suffer domestic abuse in their own intimate relationships (teenage relationship abuse). All of which can have a detrimental and long-term impact on their health, well-being, development, and ability to learn.”

On page 10, another addition has been made to “indicators of abuse and neglect” where more text has been included. It now says:

“Harm can include ill treatment that is not physical as well as the impact of witnessing ill treatment of others. This can be particularly relevant, for example, in relation to the impact on children of all forms of domestic abuse. Children may be abused in a family or in an institutional or community setting by those known to them or, more rarely, by others.”

These changes reflect the general increased awareness of the wider impact of domestic abuse, and come at a time following the pandemic when, according to the Office for National Statistics, domestic abuse victim services saw “an increase in demand”, particularly as lockdown measures eased.

6. ‘Peer-on-peer’ wording changed to ‘child-on-child’

As expected, throughout the guidance, changes have been made so that references to “peer-on-peer” abuse are replaced with “child-on-child” abuse.

At first glance, this might seem like an unimportant change but, speaking to Tes earlier this year, Bevan at VWV explained that it is important because it improves the “usefulness” of the document and brings more clarity about what schools must tackle.

“Previously, where both terms were used, it could be confusing. Could ‘peer-on-peer’ refer to two adults, for example? This makes it explicitly clear that it refers to children,” he says.

Schools should ensure that any policies they have that refer to “peer-on-peer” abuse are updated to “child-on-child” to reflect the new KCSIE guidance.

7. New focus on ‘early intervention’

What was previously referred to as “early help” in the 2021 KCSIE guidance has now been renamed “early help assessment”.

In addition to this, there has also been a restructuring of section two “Concerns and/or allegations that do not meet the harm threshold”, on page 98.

In this new structure, a paragraph (422) has been added that includes the instruction for schools to have policies and processes to deal with “[A]ny concerns (including allegations) which do not meet the harm threshold, referred to in this guidance as ‘low-level’ concerns”.

These additions and changes indicate a closer focus on record keeping around low-level concerns, and schools should ensure that this closer focus on early intervention is included in their safeguarding training for all staff.

8. Prevent update

Under the “opportunities to teach safeguarding” section on page 33, a paragraph has been included describing how the new relationship and sexual health education (RSHE) curriculum will help schools prepare students for life in modern Britain.

Specifically, the new text explains why the RSHE curriculum will help with the school’s “crucial” role in preventative education, on a raft of issues covered under the following text:

“Preventative education is most effective in the context of a whole-school or college approach that prepares pupils and students for life in modern Britain and creates a culture of zero tolerance for sexism, misogyny/misandry, homophobia, biphobic and sexual violence/harassment…These will be underpinned by the school/college’s behaviour policy and pastoral support system, as well as by a planned programme of evidence-based RSHE delivered in regularly timetabled lessons and reinforced throughout the whole curriculum.”

As well as this extra information, there is also a new link to Educate Against Hate, where signs of radicalisation are shared, which are intended to help teachers inform themselves how to spot a pupil who may be becoming radicalised.

9. Human Rights and Equality Act reminders

Another notable change to the KCSIE is found in sections 82-93, in which the states: “Governing bodies and proprietors should be aware of their obligations under the Human Rights Act 1998 21, the Equality Act 201022, (including the Public Sector Equality Duty23), and their local multi-agency safeguarding arrangements.”

The following paragraphs then detail the specific elements of these laws that schools should be mindful of, underlining just how far-reaching safeguarding is within a school.

10. New resources added

Finally, as well as providing guidance on safeguarding, KCSIE contains a number of links to resources for schools to use when training their staff, along with teaching resources for use with pupils.

This year, several new resources have been added to the document, including:

• A video on supporting children who are victims of sexual abuse.
• A link to South West Grid for Learning, a charity that provides support regarding abuse and technology, and The Marie Collins Foundation, a harmful-sexual-behaviour support service.
• A county lines toolkit for professionals.
• Government guidance on forced marriage.
• LGFL ”Undressed” - a website that features a video and song that schools can use to teach young children about the risk of being tricked into getting undressed online.

Grainne Hallahan is senior analyst at Tes