KCSIE 2026: key safeguarding updates

On 7 July 2026, the Department for Education (DfE) published the statutory safeguarding guidance Keeping Children Safe in Education (KCSIE) 2026, which comes into force on 1 September 2026.

The statutory guidance applies to maintained, non-maintained or independent schools (including academies, free schools and alternative provision academies), maintained nursery schools and pupil referral units (collectively referred to as schools). The guidance also applies to further education colleges, sixth form colleges as established under the Further and Higher Education Act 1992 and institutions designated in the further education sector (collectively, colleges).

Schools and colleges must have regard to this statutory guidance when carrying out their duties to safeguard and promote the welfare of children. For the purposes of this guidance, children are classed as everyone under the age of 18.

Consultation

HCR Law previously reported that the DfE launched a consultation on proposed changes to KCSIE on 12 February 2026. The consultation sought views on updates to the guidance for September 2026, with the aim of improving clarity, consistency and schools’ and colleges’ understanding of their legal and safeguarding responsibilities. The consultation ran until 22 April 2026.

This article summarises some of the key published changes that school staff should be aware of. The full list and explanation of all changes can be found in Annex C of the guidance.

Key changes

Part One – Safeguarding information for all staff

A key structural change in KCSIE 2026 is the replacement of Annex A, which previously provided a condensed safeguarding summary for non-teaching staff. The DfE now expects all staff, regardless of role, to read and understand Part One. Schools and colleges should consider how staff with different roles, experience and training needs will be supported to understand and apply Part One in practice.

Mental health as a safeguarding issue

KCSIE 2026 gives greater prominence to mental health, recognising that mental health concerns can become safeguarding concerns. The guidance notes that education staff are well placed to recognise potential warning signs, such as significant changes in behaviour, ongoing difficulties with sleep, withdrawal from social situations, loss of interest in previously enjoyed activities and self-neglect. As emphasised in the guidance, only appropriately trained professionals should attempt to make a diagnosis of a mental health problem.

Where concerns about a child’s mental health also raise safeguarding concerns, staff should follow child protection procedures and seek support without delay, recognising that early identification and intervention can be critical in preventing harm.

Serious violence

This section and Annex A have been substantially updated and expanded to reflect the continuing safeguarding concerns posed by serious violence. The guidance highlights further risks associated with weapons, peer conflict, bullying and criminal exploitation, alongside the heightened risks for children with disrupted education, including those who have been suspended, permanently excluded or educated in alternative provision.

Designated safeguarding leads (DSLs) should ensure that risk assessments and behaviour support plans consider exploitation risks, particularly where a learner has experienced disrupted education or a history of reoffending. Schools and colleges should also be alert to heightened times of risk, such as immediately after school.

AI, deepfakes and online safety

KCSIE 2026 introduces explicit references to AI as a safeguarding risk for the first time. The definition of making or sharing nudes and semi-nudes now expressly covers images digitally altered or wholly generated using AI, including content sometimes described as deepfakes or ‘deep nudes’.

It’s worth noting that the final guidance has reverted to the term ‘nudes and semi-nudes’ rather than the term proposed in the draft, ‘self-generated intimate images.’ The guidance also introduces the ‘4Cs’ framework for categorising online risk (content, contact, conduct and commerce), with generative AI explicitly named as a risk within the contact and conduct categories of that framework.

Schools that use AI-assisted learning tools or communication platforms should consider the data protection and safeguarding implications of those tools in light of the updated guidance. DSLs should ensure that online safety policies, filtering and monitoring arrangements and staff training address AI-related risks in a way that reflects the communication needs and vulnerabilities of their learners.

Designated safeguarding lead (DSL)

This section strengthens expectations around cover for DSLs when they are unavailable. The guidance suggests the use of a confidential shared mailbox or equivalent system to allow concerns to be received, monitored and acted on without delay. It’s also worth noting that the role of the DSL is now set out in Annex B, not Annex C.

Reasonable force and restrictive intervention

The updated section on reasonable force now aligns with the separate statutory guidance on the use of restrictive interventions. The guidance expects schools and colleges to adopt ‘sensible policies’ which should make clear that, while appropriate physical contact may sometimes be necessary to prevent harm, any use of force or restrictive intervention must be lawful, necessary, proportionate, recorded, reviewed and delivered by appropriately trained staff.

Children who are questioning their gender

This revised section of guidance has been introduced against the wider legal backdrop of the UK Supreme Court’s ruling on the meaning of sex in the Equality Act 2010, which held that references to sex, woman and man are to biological sex. The guidance is intended to give schools and colleges a clearer safeguarding framework for responding to children who are questioning their gender, including requests relating to names, pronouns, uniform, facilities, sport, trips and residential arrangements.

The key message is that schools and colleges should move away from informal or inconsistent practice and towards cautious, recorded, case-by-case decision-making. As taken from the guidance: “it is not for schools and colleges to initiate any action in this area; this guidance is focused on circumstances where a child or their parent has raised a request relating to social transition to which a school or college is responding”.

• Social transition: schools and colleges should not initiate social transition or make informal changes themselves. Any request should be treated as a safeguarding matter, which should be escalated through agreed procedures and considered with early DSL involvement, parental engagement unless this would create a safeguarding risk, clinical evidence and advice and non-clinical professional advice (such as the SENCO). Staff should understand the child’s wishes and recognise that decisions relating to social transition are not always a matter of following those wishes. Staff should also consider factors impacting the child, including broader health issues and neurodiversity
• Record keeping: schools and colleges are legally required to record a child’s biological sex accurately
• Constraints: where there are constraints arising from law, safeguarding duties or school policies, these constraints should be explained sensitively to children and families. Any records of arrangements should be kept under review as needs change
• Designated spaces: schools and colleges must not allow pupils into toilets, changing rooms or boarding or residential accommodation which are designated for the opposite sex, with no exceptions
• Policies: schools and colleges should consider whether a policy disadvantages a child who is questioning their gender, relative to other children who are not. We advise schools and colleges to seek early advice where updates may be needed to ensure their policies and practice comply with their interacting obligations under safeguarding statutory guidance and equality and human rights legislation
• Being alert: the guidance also highlights the importance of being alert to discriminatory bullying, peer vulnerability, ‘living in stealth’, detransition requests and signs of distress, while maintaining flexible, non-stereotyped support that keeps options open and avoids placing pressure on the child towards any pathway.

DBS checks

Agency and third-party staff (supply staff)

Schools and colleges must get written proof from a supply agency confirming that a temporary staff member has a valid enhanced DBS check, either obtained by the employment business or another such business. If an agency’s DBS check discloses any matter or information, schools and colleges must obtain a copy of the certificate before the person starts work.

Self-employed

Schools and colleges should request to see an existing certificate to ensure that the DBS check is at the level required by the school. Where the self-employed member doesn’t have a certificate, schools and colleges should obtain the DBS check on their behalf.

Regular or overnight volunteers

Following changes made by the Crime and Policing Act 2026, schools and colleges must ensure that volunteers whose roles amount to ‘regulated activity’ have an enhanced DBS check with children’s barred list information.

Regulated activity refers to specific types of paid or unpaid work with children and primarily includes teaching, training, caring for, supervising or advising children, as well as working in ‘specified places’ like schools where contact with children is possible. For most general work, this only becomes regulated if done frequently, meaning more than three days in a 30-day period or overnight.

The provision of medical healthcare or personal care (such as assistance with eating, washing or toileting due to age, illness or disability) is always a regulated activity, regardless of how often it happens.

The removal of the supervision exemption by the Crime and Policing Act 2026 means that supervised volunteers who meet the frequency threshold are now in regulated activity and require an enhanced DBS check, rather than being able to rely on day-to-day supervision as an alternative.

For existing volunteers in these roles, schools and colleges must verify barred list status by 1 September 2026 through either a new enhanced check or a standalone barred list check, liaising with other settings where volunteers work across multiple locations.

Adults who supervise children on work experience

Schools and colleges must also consider that when persons are supervising children for work experience for more than three days in a 30-day period or overnight, this is a regulated activity. Schools and colleges must not allow someone on the barred list to take part in work experience supervision. Risk assessments for work experience will need to be updated to reflect this requirement.

Other volunteers

Schools and colleges should take a tiered approach to other volunteers outside of regulated activity. The guidance recommends an enhanced DBS check without barred list information for volunteers who would be in regulated activity but don’t volunteer frequently and a basic DBS check for any other volunteer who may have access to children.

Visitors

If a visitor has no contact with children, a DBS check is unlikely to be required.

Duty to refer to Disclosure and Barring Service

The guidance has also confirmed that the duty to refer to DBS applies equally to paid staff and volunteers when engaged in regulated activities.

The updated guidance also encourages voluntary use of the free DBS Update Service for portability and allows for enhanced checks without barred list information or basic checks for non-regulated volunteer roles, depending on the level of access.

Part Five: Child-on-child sexual harassment and sexual violence

Part Five has been updated to strengthen the approach to child-on-child sexual harassment and sexual violence, including clearer recognition that behaviour may sit on a continuum and may escalate if not addressed.

The restructured section presents a more progressive continuum of sexual behaviours, from early indicators of harmful sexual behaviour through to sexual harassment and sexual violence, and highlights how misogynistic attitudes can underpin and normalise harassment and violence.

Schools and colleges should review their relevant policies and practice to ensure they recognise harmful sexual behaviour and misogyny, avoid minimising any form of abuse as ‘banter’ and distinguish between developmentally inappropriate behaviour, harmful behaviour and safeguarding concerns that require referral or specialist intervention.

Looking forward

KCSIE 2026 comes into force on 1 September 2026. Schools should ensure that all staff have read Part One and understand their safeguarding responsibilities.

Schools and colleges are recommended to review and revise their policies in line with the upcoming changes and consider not only whether policies are compliant, but whether staff understand what the changes mean for the children and young people they support.