Safeguarding training for schools

Training that keeps up with KCSIE

Keeping Children Safe in Education asks every member of staff to have safeguarding training when they start, and to have it updated regularly, at least once a year. Your designated safeguarding lead needs more, refreshed every two years. None of that is optional, and all of it has to be recorded.

We update the core safeguarding courses each year when the new KCSIE comes out, so the version your staff take in September is the one an inspector will ask about. There are separate introductions for primary, secondary, special schools and post-16, because a Year 1 classroom and a sixth form college don’t raise the same worries.

Beyond the annual update

The update is the minimum, and the gaps are where things go wrong. Think of the member of staff who didn’t know what a disclosure of forced marriage sounds like, or who’d never heard of fabricated or induced illness. So alongside the core courses there are short ones on child-on-child abuse, online risks, radicalisation, criminal and sexual exploitation, private fostering and children missing from education. Most take under an hour. A DSL can set one for a single team after a staff meeting, with no INSET day to book.

Who it’s for

Anyone who works with children: teachers, teaching assistants, office staff, lunchtime supervisors, governors, supply staff, drivers. If they’re in the building or on the minibus, they need it.

Proof, without the spreadsheet

Each course ends in a certificate showing the date, the CPD hours and when it’s due for renewal. With a school membership you can set safeguarding for everyone, give it a deadline and see who’s done it. When someone’s certificate is about to run out, we remind them, so you don’t have to.