Keeping Children Safe in Education guidance is statutory guidance for schools and colleges on safeguarding children and safer recruitment.
Identifying children who are missing education and helping them get back into it.
Model Child Protection/Safeguarding Policy for Schools - updated July 2022
Please see below for a draft safeguarding children policy which you can download and adapt to your school - the updates are in red so that schools can easily identify them - remember to save your policy.
- Draft / example policy document (Word)
- Safeguarding policy appendix (Word)
Safeguarding children training
Safeguarding Bedfordshire is the multi-agency training provider for the Safeguarding Children Partnerships in Bedford Borough, Central Bedfordshire and Luton
It offers training for those working or volunteering with children, young people and/or adults across Bedfordshire.
What to do if you're worried a child is being abused
To report a safeguarding concern about a child or young person please go to the reporting a safeguarding concern page.
Information sharing
Advice for safeguarding professionals on information sharing. The advice explains relevant legislation and includes key principles and practicalities of sharing personal information.
Working together to safeguard children - July 2018
The Department for Education has published a revised version of the Working together to safeguard children guidance (PDF). Changes include: guidance on notifiable incidents and a definition of serious harm.
Keeping children safe in education: key changes
The NSPCC has published a briefing On Keeping Children Safe in Education (2021), which will come into force for schools in England on 1 September 2021.
Ofsted - Safeguarding Children and young people and and young vulnerable adults policy.
Local guidance
Annual Report Template
Head Teachers Annual report template to the Governing Body on Safeguarding Children 2013/14 (Word, 183KB)
NSPCC guidance
- How schools, colleges and academies may protect children from neglect, sexual abuse, sexting, sexual exploitation and grooming and entrapment.
- Recommended adult to child ratios - The NSPCC offers guidance on appropriate levels of supervision for children and young people. This includes advice on adult to child ratios, toilet ratios, first aid ratios, travelling ratios.
- Safeguarding in Education Self-Assessment Tool (ESAT)= The NSPCC and the Times Educational Supplement have produced a free Safeguarding in Education Self-Assessment Tool (ESAT) which enables school safeguarding leads to audit their school's current safeguarding arrangements and supports them to make changes and identify areas for developments.
- Self-Assessment Tool
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The use of photos on websites and in other publications poses direct and indirect risks to children and young people. Organisations wishing to use images of the children they work with or are otherwise in contact with must therefore have a policy in place to safeguard the children involved. Visit the NSPCC for further guidance.
Safer Recruitment
The Safer Recruitment Consortium (NSPCC, Lucy Faithfull Foundation, CAPE and NASS) has published updated guidance to assist schools in developing their staff code of conduct / staff behaviour policy.
Safer Working
Website to support school and college staff to keep children and young people safe
The Centre for Research on Children and Families at the University of East Anglia (UEA), has launched a website to support school and college staff in understanding abuse and neglect from the child or young person’s point of view.
The iCAN website includes free training materials and resources for schools and colleges, and a framework to help teachers and other school and college staff to be alert to children and young people who may be experiencing abuse or neglect, and to better understand: to what extent children and young people recognise maltreatment and how they decide whether to tell someone about it; how they may show their distress, even when they can’t talk about it; and what children and young people think about the help they receive.