DfE Call for Evidence - Safeguarding children in schools and colleges
The Department for Education launched a 12-week 'Safeguarding Children in Schools and Colleges' call for evidence on 28 March 2024. This invites staff in schools and colleges, and other safeguarding professionals, to share their views and current practice to inform the content of 'Keeping Children Safe in Education' for 2025 and help shape the future direction of safeguarding practice.
The consultation seeks views on a wide range of issues including:
- The role of designated safeguarding leads
- The recording, retention and sharing of child safeguarding information
- Safer staff recruitment
- Filtering and monitoring systems
- Supporting children following reports of sexual violence and harassment
- Protecting children in boarding schools and residential special schools
- Quality assuring safeguarding
- Children bringing their own devices to schools
- Artificial intelligence
The consultation information states that ministers have decided that Keeping Children Safe in Education, 2024 will only undergo technical changes before final publication in September 2024 with a view to providing a more substantively updated document in 2025.
To share your views and have the opportunity to influence the direction of national policy, please access the consultation at Safeguarding children in schools and colleges - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk). The deadline for responses is 20 June 2024.
One area the DfE call for evidence seeks views on is the role of education settings within local safeguarding arrangements. In 2021, the Independent Review of Children's Social Care and the Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel recommended that education have a strengthened role in multi-agency safeguarding arrangements. This recommendation was reflected in revisions made to 'Working Together to Safeguard Children' in 2023 which expects that safeguarding partners locally will name schools and colleges as relevant agencies.
During the Summer term, we will consult with DSLs and senior leaders within the sector to think about how education is included in our local safeguarding arrangements and how we can strengthen these arrangements further.
LA Contact : Education Safeguarding Team