Many school leaders might, understandably, have missed the publication of a major update to statutory guidance Working together to safeguard children, given that it was published on 15 December, the last day of term for many schools.

This guidance is for “multi-agency working” around child safeguarding, and the actual legal requirements on schools and school leaders have not been changed.

There are, however, several important points in the update for school leaders and designated safeguarding leads to note for the coming term.

Updated safeguarding guidance for schools

1. A greater acknowledgment of the role of schools

One update makes it clear that schools are a central part of multi-agency safeguarding with paragraphs 76 and 77 of the updated guidance stating: ”[Education settings] have a pivotal role to play in safeguarding children and promoting their welfare.

“Their insight and cooperation are vital to the successful delivery of multi-agency safeguarding arrangements…This means making sure that the views and contributions of education and childcare providers are articulated at the highest level of decision-making.”

This should be welcomed by school leaders, who have long felt that schools can be left out of the loop when it comes to making decisions about safeguarding when other agencies become involved, even though it is often the school that knows the child best.

The guidance also specifies that published arrangements and yearly reports should outline how education providers are engaged and consulted with, which should help to focus minds in this area.

2. Better sharing of safeguarding information

Building on this, the updated guidance also makes it clear that better information sharing between education settings and other safeguarding professionals in other agencies is needed.

“Safeguarding professionals, including safeguarding partners and their delegates, should work closely with education and childcare settings to ensure information about children is shared effectively.” (paragraph 128)

This has likely come in response to recent consultations showing that while schools have always been required to pass on information to other agencies, agencies like social services and the police have often been less good at sharing information with schools.

The guidance also says that schools must be more proactive in sharing information about students, such as “increased absence or mental health problems, which may be indicators that a child has suffered or is at risk of suffering neglect, abuse and exploitation”.

Given this, schools might want to start reaching out proactively to their local safeguarding agencies to see what plans there are for sharing this information.

3. A greater emphasis on working with families

Much of the 2023 update of Working together to safeguard children is based on the government consultation response document Children’s Social Care: stable homes, built on love, so it is not surprising there is a big focus on the importance of engaging positively with the family in cases of safeguarding concerns.

“Parents and carers need to understand what is happening, what they can expect from the help and support provided, what is expected of them and be supported to say what they think.” (paragraph 18)

Given this, it is more important than ever that schools are clear about how they engage positively with parents with regard to safeguarding issues.

It also means that if there is a safeguarding concern and a reason why communication with parents might not be straightforward, schools will need to be even clearer about why they feel parents or carers should not be informed about the safeguarding issue.

They will need to justify this to other agencies and also, in all probability, to those parents in the future if a safeguarding concern is managed without their knowledge.

4. What children have said they need

Paragraph 13 states what children want from an effective safeguarding system. Much of it is already stated in existing safeguarding policies, but some points are worth emphasising: children said they wanted:

• Respect: to be treated with the expectation that they are competent rather than not.
• Information and engagement: to be informed about, and involved in procedures, decisions, concerns and plans.
• Explanation: to be informed of the outcome of assessments, and decisions and reasons when their views have not met with a positive response.
• Advocacy: to be provided with advocacy to assist them in putting their views forward.

A lot of safeguarding policy and practice treats children as people to whom safeguarding is “done”.

It would be good to see schools taking these points on and looking to do more to give children information and explanation about safeguarding, both in general as part of personal, social, health and economic (PSHE) education and also in specific cases of safeguarding concerns, so that children feel that they fully understand what is happening.

It is likely that many of the points raised here will be included in Keeping Children Safe in Education 2024, and schools that start to think about how to incorporate these new emphases into their safeguarding practice and policy will be on the front foot for the new year.

Luke Ramsden is deputy head of an independent school and chair of trustees for the Schools Consent Project