Governors don’t run safeguarding in a school. They make sure it’s being run properly. Part two of Keeping Children Safe in Education (KCSIE) sets out the governing board’s duties, and it expects every governor and trustee to have safeguarding and child protection training, including online safety, when they join and regularly after that.
What is a governor’s role in safeguarding?
The law puts a duty on governing bodies, and on the proprietors of academies and independent schools, to make arrangements to safeguard and promote the welfare of children. KCSIE turns that duty into practice, and part two is the bit written for you.
The board must have a senior lead for safeguarding at board level, usually called the safeguarding governor or safeguarding trustee. That person leads, but the duty belongs to the whole board.
The role is strategic. Elizabeth Rose, who presents our governors’ course, calls it “not an operational role”. You aren’t there to write the policy or handle a disclosure. You’re there to check that the school has the right things in place, that they work, and to support the people doing a very hard job.
If you’re a local governor in a multi-academy trust, find out what the trust has delegated to you. Your local knowledge is valuable even where the statutory duty sits with the trustees, so make sure what you see gets back to them.
Do governors have to do safeguarding training?
Yes, at induction and regularly after that. The point is to give you the knowledge to challenge the board on strategy and to be sure the school’s policies and procedures are effective.
It isn’t the same as the training your staff get. Staff learn to spot and report concerns, and you need that background too: you can’t check whether staff understand the four main types of abuse (physical, emotional, sexual abuse and neglect) if you don’t. On top of that you need the legal framework, the board’s own duties, and the evidence that tells you whether things are working.
Ask your head or DSL how the board is trained, when that was last updated, and whether it’s recorded. If the answer is vague, our safeguarding training for governors is one way to fill the gap.
A safeguarding checklist for school governors
This is a shortened version of what KCSIE part two says the board should be assured of. Use the guidance itself for the full list.
- A designated safeguarding lead (DSL) is appointed from the senior leadership team, with the time and support to do the role.
- There’s a child protection policy, reviewed every year and published on the school website or available by other means.
- A staff code of conduct, behaviour policy and procedures for children missing education are in place, along with safer recruitment and allegations management.
- All staff have safeguarding training at induction and regular updates, and it includes online safety.
- The school follows the procedures of its local safeguarding partnership: the local authority, the police and health.
- Appropriate filtering and monitoring keep children safe on school systems, and the board knows how they’re reviewed.
- Children are taught about safeguarding, including online safety, through the curriculum.
- The school keeps a single central record of recruitment checks, and at least one person on every interview panel has had safer recruitment training.
- Child protection files are kept properly, and there are clear systems for spotting mental health problems.
- Children at greater risk of harm are thought about specifically: those with a social worker, looked-after and previously looked-after children, children with SEND, and children missing education.
You might also be asked to look at safeguarding when the school lets out rooms or its site to other groups.
How do you check what you’re told?
Most of what governors see comes in a report written by the people you’re meant to be checking. That isn’t a criticism of school leaders. A report on its own just isn’t assurance.
Elizabeth’s advice is to triangulate: cross-check what you’re told against data, against what you see on visits, and against conversations with staff and pupils. Some practical ways to do that:
- Ask new staff what their induction covered and who they’d go to with a worry.
- Look at pupil and parent questionnaires, and what they say about feeling safe.
- Walk round the school and watch the signing-in process, the posters, how visitors are handled.
- Ask to see the local authority’s safeguarding audit (often called the Section 175 audit) and use it to frame your questions.
- Check that the single central record has been audited, by the head, an external adviser or you, and that there’s a schedule for it. It’s a live document, so a one-off sign-off doesn’t mean much.
Every governor can do this, whatever their link area. If you’re the curriculum governor, ask a subject leader how online safety features in their subject. If your school has a visit form, add a box for safeguarding and report it at the next board meeting.
Questions to ask about online safety and child-on-child abuse
These two come up again and again, and both are worth a dedicated meeting.
On online safety, ask what training staff have had and who delivered it (and ask to see the slides). Ask how the school manages pupils’ own phones and smart devices. KCSIE suggests schools review their approach to online safety every year, so ask what the last review found and what changed as a result. The UK Council for Internet Safety publishes a free set of questions for governing boards, which is a good place to start.
Child-on-child abuse needs a bit more care. Suppose you ask whether it’s happening and the answer is “we haven’t had any reports”. Don’t stop there. KCSIE is clear that staff should assume it could be happening even when it isn’t reported. So ask the next question: how do you know? How would a pupil tell someone? Do staff know what to do with a disclosure? Where do consent and healthy relationships appear in the curriculum?
Inspection questions for the safeguarding governor
Inspectors will want to know that leaders and those responsible for governance understand their safeguarding duties and are carrying them out. If you’re the safeguarding governor, be ready to say how you know safeguarding is effective, because “the policies exist” won’t be enough.
Questions you could prepare for:
- How does the board get assurance about safeguarding, and how often?
- What are the main safeguarding risks for pupils at this school, and how do you know?
- When did you last check the single central record, and what did you find?
- How has the board challenged leaders on safeguarding, and what changed?
- What training have governors had, and when?
If you can answer those with examples from your own visits and the evidence you’ve seen, you’re in a good place.
Safeguarding training for school governors from Creative Education
Our governors’ course is led by Elizabeth Rose, an independent safeguarding trainer and adviser who works with us on much of our safeguarding training. It covers the legal framework and what part two of KCSIE asks of the board, then turns that into things you can do, with a refresher on the four main types of abuse.
It’s for any governor or trustee, whether you’re new to the board or the named safeguarding lead, and it’s useful for DSLs who train their own boards. For more on keeping children safe, see our safeguarding pages, or go straight to the governors’ course.