The Department For Education has recently released the final version of Keeping Children Safe in Education 2024. 

As we all know, KCSIE comprehensively explains the responsibilities of governors, headteachers, DSLs and all staff in terms of Safeguarding and Child Protection and there is a requirement that staff read Part 1 of the guidance. 

One thing that has been consistent over recent years is that staff are expected not just to read the guidance, but to demonstrate they understand what is expected of them, and then to act upon the requirements.   

It is a minimal update this year. Major structural and content changes have been saved for the next academic year and the Government ran a call for evidence on safeguarding in schools and colleges which closed in June 2024. This version of the statutory guidance contains only technical changes according to the DFE “with a view to providing a more substantively updated document, encompassing wider changes, to be delivered in 2025”. 

In her recent blog, Safeguarding Advisor Jo Perrin has picked out many of the key changes and posed questions to help you assess the effectiveness of implementation in your setting each time. 

Read the full blog here.

BOOK YOUR SAFEGUARDING TRAINING 

Have you booked your safeguarding training for 2024/25 yet? 

Services For Education provide a wide range of safeguarding training courses throughout the year. 

ONLINE SAFEGUARDING INSET FOR MATS 

 If you’re a MAT looking for a consistent safeguarding training for all your academies, look no further. Services For Education can provide an online inset for you to share amongst your schools and ensure everyone is up to date with the latest. Get in touch to find out more. 

SAFEGUARDING SUBSCRIPTION 

If you’re looking for value for money, our safeguarding subscription not only provides you with an online safeguarding inset, but also over 100 other webinars and resources about safeguarding. Updated every half term with new, up to date content, the safeguarding subscription will provide your school with everything it needs to fulfil it’s safeguarding requirements and ensure children are safe. Sign up here. 

What are the likely implications for your school curriculum and pupils? 

Whilst the new draft statutory guidance does have some interesting and welcomed features, there are also elements which seem to contradict much research and, perhaps crucially, go against what young people themselves have been saying for years about wanting more detail and earlier introduction to topics that have the potential to affect their lives.  

The important thing to remember is that this is currently draft guidance only. These changes have not yet come into force, and anyone, including parents, carers and young people, can read the draft version and respond to the consultation available here: Review of the RSHE statutory guidance – Department for Education – Citizen Space. The more people who respond, the more force there is to shape the future curriculum to support children and schools, so we at SFE do urge you to have a look and ensure your thoughts and views are heard.    

Safeguarding Advisers Lucie Welch and Jo Perrin discuss The New Draft RSHE Statutory Guidance in their recent blog. 

The New Draft RSHE Statutory Guidance – What are the likely implications for your School Curriculum and Pupils?

Have you ever waited patiently for a Christmas or birthday gift, and despite the fact...

20
May

You may be aware that Ofsted have recently announced new changes to the School Inspections Handbook, detailing a number of updates. 

Although the changes are minor, we’ve compiled a list of the updates and key changes for your setting to be aware of, from a safeguarding perspective. 

Safeguarding Updates September 2023  

In September 2023 the school inspection handbook made changes to reflect the changes they have made in how they inspect safeguarding.   

They:  

• Updated the monitoring policy to include early monitoring inspections and added new paragraphs on monitoring programmes for inadequate schools.  

• They added a new section on monitoring programmes for schools judged inadequate solely due to ineffective safeguarding (early monitoring inspections).  

• Added new paragraphs on deeming of monitoring inspections that are inadequate with serious weakness due to ineffective safeguarding and they stated that final feedback meeting for inadequate schools with serious weakness solely due to ineffective safeguarding.  

Safeguarding Updates October 2023 

Building on from September’s updates, in October 2023 the school inspection handbook provided more detail on what evidence inspectors will ask schools to provide in relation to safeguarding, to prevent unnecessary workload for schools, they clarified that:  

• Inspectors will want schools to provide details about adults living on school sites.  

• They clarified that inspectors will look at attendance when carrying out ungraded inspections of schools.  

• Minor changes to take account of the new Department for Education’s exclusions and suspensions guidance.   

All of these updates relate to safeguarding in its widest sense.  

Read more about the key changes and access the School Inspections Handbook here. 

If Safeguarding is important to you and your school, you can keep up with the latest news and advice via our SFE Safeguarding Newsletter.  

You may remember a project that we shared with you at the start of last year. 

FGM and language – how the way in which we communicate about safeguarding issues and the choices we make when doing so affect the understanding and buy-in of the entire school community 

The project, conducted by The University of Birmingham in conjunction with Services For Education and BAFGM (Birmingham Against Female Genital Mutilation), has commenced and we have already identified themes that occur or that are missing in many of the commonly used FGM educational resources. 

We also led a working group with colleagues from the children’s workforce to discuss our findings and to talk through school staff’s lived experience of delivering these materials. 

This month, we are sharing our initial findings with you in our latest blog: 

Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), Language, Disconnect and Safeguarding Culture 

Our funded research is now looking towards the next phase of the project, which will involve focus groups of young people within schools, followed by reports of feedback which we will share with materials developers. 

Long-term we want to drill down on what impact the language used in educational resources has on understanding, and what language connects with young people and their families. 

Our end goal is to identify resources that have more sensitivity and clarity and potentially long-term to develop specific resources, but we can’t do that until we have done this vital piece of in-depth work. 

Find out more about the project here. If you would like to get involved, please feel free to email us at [email protected]