Keeping Children Safe in Education 2025 Draft NOW PUBLISHED

Designated Safeguarding Leads and Senior Leaders in schools across the UK have been eagerly anticipating the publication of the statutory guidance ‘Keeping Children Safe In Education’ for 2025.  

Despite a large consultation on the guidance being undertaken this academic year, there are only technical changes to KCSIE for 2025. However, future publications will incorporate legislation from the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill and learning from the Violence Against Women and Girls strategy.  

The full publication of KCSIE 2025 draft can be found here but we’ve listed the changes below and have included a “to do” list for schools in terms of next steps. Part One of the guidance has not been amended at all, so the information for “all staff” is the same as the previous year. However, the government have noted that they intend to publish revised guidance to the Relationships, Sex and Health Education and Gender Questioning Children this summer, so if this occurs, references will be made to the guidance in September 2025. 

Part Two – The management of safeguarding

Paragraph 135: Has been updated to clarify misinformation, disinformation (including fake news) and conspiracy theories are safeguarding harms within online safety.  

Paragraph 142: A link has been added to the plan technology for your school service, which schools can use to assess themselves against the filtering and monitoring standards and receive personalised recommendations on how to meet them.   

Paragraph 143: A link has been provided for Generative AI: product safety expectations to support schools to use generative artificial intelligence safely, and explains how filtering and monitoring requirements apply to the use of generative AI in education. 

Paragraph 144: Wording has been amended in the ‘cybersecurity standards for schools and colleges’ advice to clarify that it was developed to help schools improve their cyber resilience.   

Paragraph 169 – 170: Added information which clarifies and reflects existing guidance for Alternative Provisions. Schools continue to be responsible for children who are accessing alternative provision. 

Paragraph 177: Amendment made to clarify that ‘Working Together to Improve School Attendance’ is statutory guidance, strengthening the link between attendance and safeguarding.  

Paragraph 199: Has been amended to clarify that the role of the virtual head has been extended to include responsibility for promoting the educational achievement of children in kinship care. For more information on what Kinship Care looks like, read our blog. 

Part Three – Safer recruitment

Most changes to this section included amendments to web addresses, signposting to the GOV.UK pages. 

Paragraph 331: Amendments have been made to reflect existing guidance for Alternative Provisions, outlining the safer recruitment responsibilities for commissioning schools. 

Part Five – Child-on-child sexual violence and sexual harassment

Parageraph 545: A link has been added to the Lucy Faithfull Foundation’s ‘Shore Space’. which offers a confidential chat service supporting young people concerned about their own or someone else’s sexual thoughts and behaviours. 

So, what do I need to do now?

As Designated Safeguarding Leads and Senior Leaders in schools, you need to ensure that your policies and procedures for safeguarding pupils are reflective of the current legislation. Whilst KCSIE isn’t live for schools until 1^st September 2025, below are some things you can be doing to ensure you are prepared: 

• Be mindful that this version is still draft until 1^st September, so keep your eye out for any further changes to the guidance. 

• Look out for the publication of the Relationships, Sex and Health Education guidance over summer, and ensure that this is reflected in your curriculum, policies and procedures in September, if this takes place. 

• As above, look out for the publication of Gender Questioning Children guidance, and again, ensure that this is incorporated into your setting’s policies and procedures for September. 

• Ensure that the technical changes outlined for KCSIE 2025 are now reflected within your policies, ensuring that terminology and reference links are kept up to date. 

• Make sure that all staff read Part One of KCSIE 2025 when published on 1^st September, and that they confirm that they have read and understood the document fully. For staff who speak English as an additional language, translated versions are usually available through the National Grid for Learning. They also release a recorded audio-version of Part One for anyone who may prefer to listen to the guidance. 

For any further support for safeguarding in your school, such as Safeguarding Supervision, Training, Safeguarding Assessments or for more information on our Resource Packages, please email: safeguarding@oneeducation.co.uk or visit our website.