Safeguarding in Schools - Key Trends to Look out for in 2025

Schools will need to adapt rapidly to protect their pupils, staff and reputation from growing threats, higher accountability, and rising pressures to do more with fewer resources throughout 2025.

The stakes are higher than ever. But with the right support and strategies in place, schools can address these challenges head on, with confidence.

In this blog, Helen King, Head of Safeguarding at Judicium Education shares her thoughts on the key trends that schools must look out for in 2025 and provides actionable advice and guidance in a Q&A style format.

The Mental Health Crisis

The most recent NHS survey in 2023 revealed that 1 in 5 children and young people have a probable mental health disorder, and the situation is worsening. Schools are at the forefront of this crisis, often acting as the first responders for pupils in distress.

What to expect in 2025:

• Complex cases such as self-harm, eating disorders, and anxiety are becoming more prevalent, requiring specialised interventions for services with long wait times
• Pressure on Designated Safeguarding Leads, expected to manage cases awaiting specialist support
• Demand for all staff to better understand and support children’s needs

How can schools manage these rising demands?

1. Attend training on specific mental health training to better identify, support and build confidence in these areas.
2. Prioritise safeguarding supervision by making it more easily accessible to your DSLs to support their wellbeing and professional development
3. Invest in training for all staff on mental health awareness ensuring the entire team understands how to identify and support vulnerable pupils.

Online Safety

Children’s lives are increasingly online, and with that comes growing exposure to online abuse, cyberbullying, and exploitation. The rise of AI tools, such as deepfakes and generative AI, has added a new layer of complexity to online safeguarding in 2025.

What to look out for in 2025:

• AI exploitation; predators are now using AI-generated images to target children, making it harder for schools and parents to detect threats
• Excessive screen time and addiction, linking to declining mental health and concentration levels
• Increased incidents of child-on-child abuse taking place online and being brought into school

How do you ensure online safety protocols are robust enough to protect pupils?

1. Regularly review and update your school’s online safety policies to reflect emerging threats like AI exploitation.
2. Ensure all staff and governors complete online safety training which considers emerging risks
3. Support children and young people to understand what healthy online behaviour looks like

Increasing Pressure on Safeguarding Leads

The people responsible for safeguarding are burning out. More than 1 in 2 attendees to our recent Sofa Session cited workload as the biggest challenge they had faced in the last academic year.

2025 will see:

• Ofsted inspections placing greater emphasis on safeguarding, requiring more documentation, evidence, and training
• Overworked safeguarding staff are leaving the profession, creating gaps in expertise
• Increase in referrals to the DSL

How can your school protect safeguarding leads from burnout while maintaining high standards of care?

1. Providing well-structured, regular supervision not only supports DSLs emotionally but also ensures a high standard of safeguarding practice across your school.
2. Ensuring that appropriate staff receive effective training that empowers them to face safeguarding challenges
3. Increasing the size of the safeguarding team and those who are DSL level trained to ensure capacity

Stricter Accountability

Ofsted will continue to scrutinise safeguarding culture and schools must demonstrate how they protect pupils and fulfil their broad safeguarding remit

Expect to see:

• Tighter scrutiny of safeguarding practices at inspection with an even greater focus on safeguarding cultures
• Change in guidance in KCSIE 2025 meaning a new raft of statutory information for schools to understand
• Parents increasingly holding schools accountable for safeguarding
• Change in guidance in KCSIE 2025 meaning a new raft of statutory information for schools to understand

How can your school confidently demonstrate its safeguarding practices?

1. Consider organising a safeguarding audit, these typically deep dive into practices in greater time and depth than Ofsted
2. Schedule training for September to ensure full compliance with guidance and to ease the burden
3. Request a policy review to ensure it is completely compliant with statutory guidance

How Judicium Education can help with SEND provision… 

Judicium Education’s Safeguarding Service offers expert support to ensure your school or academy trust meets compliance standards whilst creating a safe and supportive environment. Our comprehensive service strengthens safeguarding strategies, aligning with Ofsted and ISI requirements. We provide safeguarding audits, policy reviews, tailored training for DSLs and staff, and guidance on best practices to equip schools with the tools and expertise needed to safeguard pupils and staff effectively.

Find out more here