Safeguarding: KCSIE 2023 - What All Staff Need to Know

This blog is based on Judicium’s Safeguarding ‘Sofa Session’ from the 4th of September, with our resident expert Helen King. This session focused on A review of what KCSIE outlines what all staff should know; a reminder of updates to this and last year’s KCSIE and what staff should know in relation to these, and top tips on how to get across fundamentals to staff.

The Essentials for September

All Staff Should:

1. Read Part One of Keeping Children Safe in Education (KCSIE) or Annex A if they are support staff.

   • NB: Leaders and those staff who work directly with children should read Annex B, which contains important additional information about specific forms of abuse and safeguarding issues.

2. Know who the DSL is and what their role is.

3. Be aware of the following policies and procedures:

• • Child protection policy

  • Behaviour policy

  • Staff behaviour policy (also known as the Staff Code of Conduct)

  • The safeguarding response to children absent from education.

4. Know how to share concerns about a child’s welfare including knowing how to make a referral to CSC and the early help process locally.

5. Complete online safety training which includes an understanding of expectations, roles and responsibilities around filtering and monitoring

6. Know how to raise concerns about a member of staff, the processes for allegations of abuse made against staff or volunteers, and the school’s whistleblowing procedures.

7. Receive induction training and regular updates. NB: These are likely to have taken place as a start point in the last couple of days.

Whether or not you have completed training with your staff already, ensure the following:

1. They have read the relevant safeguarding policies and understand key procedures, many schools will get staff to complete a quiz or sign to indicate this.

2. They have read the relevant sections of KCSIE related to their roles, again many schools will get staff to complete a quiz or sign to indicate this.

3. They have completed training that includes online safety, filtering and monitoring, and how to share concerns about students and staff.

Key Areas of Training for All Staff 

As there is so much content within KCSIE, so we have broken down the guidance into four key areas of training all your staff should know.

Importance of safeguarding and building a safeguarding culture

• always consider what is in the best interests of the child,
• provide a safe environment in which children can learn.
• Understand that, even if there are no reports in their schools of child-on-child abuse, it does not mean it is not happening. NB: It may just not be reported.
• Understand the importance of challenging inappropriate behaviours between children that are abusive in nature.
  • For example, they should know how to challenge sexual harassment and not pass it of as ‘boys will be boys’ or banter.
• Understand safeguarding is everyone’s responsibility and they have a duty within this to share and report concerns.

Although these are easy to communicate in staff training, they are harder to measure. However, emphasising the importance of safeguarding regularly and how staff should exercise professional curiosity will help.

You’ll know you have a good safeguarding culture if staff don’t disregard concerns, are vigilant, report effectively and demonstrate good knowledge.

Top Tip for DSLs: A DSL can get a sense of this from the incidents being reported, and perhaps those that are not.

Responding to disclosures

What does KCSIE say about responding to disclosures?

It states that staff should know:

• What to do if a child tells them they are being abused, exploited, or neglected.

  • They should know how to manage the requirement to maintain an appropriate level of confidentiality, and not promise confidentiality to the child.

• They should be able to reassure victims they are being taken seriously, will be supported and kept safe.

• They should be aware that children may not feel ready or know how to tell someone that they are being abused, exploited, or neglected, and/or they may not recognise their experiences as harmful.

NB: Teachers have a mandatory reporting duty if they discover an act of FGM appears to have been carried out on a girl under the age of 18, they must report this to the police.

Overall, when Judicium speaks to school staff, they show high knowledge in what they are supposed to do when a child discloses to them and what they should not do. It’s a message schools have been sharing with staff for a long time now and staff are secure in this.

However, there is a difference between theoretically knowing what to do and actioning iy in practice, which is likely to be a lot more challenging for a member of staff.

Our Top Tip: Add in scenario training with staff around disclosures so they can consider how they should respond appropriately, and any misconceptions can be ironed out. 

Reporting concerns

• Child’s Welfare

If staff have a concern about a child’s welfare, they should act upon it immediately.

 Important considerations:

• • How are staff trained on how to raise concerns and where do they record their concerns?

  • Are there times you would expect them to prioritise physically coming and finding a member of the safeguarding team e.g., in an emergency.

  • Do staff know who the DSL is, especially new staff, and do they know who they could speak to if the DSL was not available?

  • Do they know what they should record and how e.g., language, tone and detail?

• Safeguarding Practices
  • Staff should also be able to raise concerns about safeguarding practices in the school and should know the school whistleblowing procedures.

• Concerns About Staff
  • They should also be able to raise concerns about members of staff or volunteers in the school as either a low-level concern (those concerns that do not meet the harm threshold) or as an allegation of abuse made against staff that does meet the harm threshold.
  • NB: Your process for reporting low-level concerns can be different than for allegations of abuse against staff so you should consider this and make this especially clear when communicating to staff.

 In these circumstances, staff should know how to escalate concerns e.g., if it was about a child, staff should know they can make a referral to children’s social care and how they would do this. We know this is unlikely but, in an emergency, you may need them to be aware of this, so it is important that they are.

Staff should also know who to report concerns about the Headteacher to. This is typically the Chair of Governors or the Local Authority Designated Officer (LADO).

Top Tip: Again, we would advise with this type of content - and to really have good understanding from the staff body – to complete some scenario training so staff have better means of retaining this knowledge and hopefully will be more confident going forward.

Knowing the different types of safeguarding concerns  

Content on this in KCSIE is extensive therefore, we would recommend trying to split it up.

KCSIE suggests the following are areas staff should be aware of (sometimes just teaching staff, sometimes just those who work with children but as that covers most school staff then we are thinking this is the case for most staff):

• Online safety

• Filtering and monitoring roles and responsibilities

• The local early help process and being alert to which children and circumstances mean a child could benefit from early help.

• Consider whether children are at risk of abuse or exploitation in situations outside of their families e.g., county lines.

• Know the indicators of different types of abuse and neglect.

• Be aware that behaviours that link to substance misuse, deliberately missing education, serious violence, radicalisation and consensual and non-consensual sharing of nude and semi-nude images can be signals that children are at risk.

• Have a thorough understanding of child-on-child abuse and how to respond to it.

• Be aware that mental health problems can be an indicator that a child has or is suffering abuse.

• Know about the specific forms of abuse and safeguarding issues in Annex B (which cover 20 different specific forms).

All of this can feel a little overwhelming. Here is our recommendation for the simplest ways to cover it:

1. Use induction in September to cover culture, responding to disclosures and reporting concerns.

2. Use eLearning and update opportunities either through briefings, separate insets or even newsletters and quizzes to update on the different types of safeguarding concerns.

   • As we know with pedagogy, little and often is more likely to help staff retain than a September bumper edition and no follow up for a year.

NB: Subscribers to our service receive an annual programme of five-minute briefing training sessions with quizzes, including retrieval practice to support all staff’s understanding. These save the DSL time and alleviate some of the burden of ensuring all staff know what they need to. Please use the Find Out More box if you are interested in learning more.

KCSIE Updates

The big focus in 2023 in terms of what staff need to know is around filtering and monitoring, so ensure staff are adequately trained and SLT know what the system is and that it is fit for purpose.

We have a sofa session covering filtering and monitoring on Wednesday, 27th September. Book Here.

The other broader updates to KCSIE DSLs need to know about can be viewed in our summary from our June 2023 Sofa Session on KCSIE updates.

• Change from peer-on-peer abuse terminology to child-on-child abuse.
• Domestic abuse and how children can be victims of this.
• All governors to receive training at induction, including online safety.

Again, if you want to go through all of the updates in more depth you can find our 2022 sofa session notes here.

You can follow us on Twitter: @JudiciumSG       @JudiciumEDU

Safeguarding eLearning Courses

The Safeguarding Team can also deliver bespoke, onsite training at your school. Prices start from £495+VAT for 2 hours covering one of the following: Governor training, Safer Recruitment, DSL or All Staff.

If you’d like to review Judicium’s forthcoming sofa sessions please click here

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