Keeping children safe in education

Overview

The Department for Education invites your views on changes to the statutory guidance Keeping children safe in education (KCSIE) and a new departmental non-statutory advice document covering sexual violence and sexual harassment between children in schools and colleges.

Why your views matter

The consultation seeks views on revisions to Keeping children safe in education (KCSIE), the statutory guidance to which all schools and colleges must have regard when carrying out their duties to safeguard and promote the welfare of children. KCSIE sets out the legal duties that schools and colleges must comply with, together with good practice guidance on what schools and colleges should do in order to keep children safe. 

The guidance is extensive, covering what staff should know and do to safeguard children, the management of safeguarding in schools and colleges, safer recruitment and responding to allegations of abuse against staff.  The department keeps its statutory guidance under review and revises it as required to keep it up to date and relevant. 

We are consulting on a wide variety of proposed changes to KCSIE.  The aim is to help schools and colleges to better understand what they are required to do by law and what we strongly advise they should do in order to safeguard and promote the welfare of children.

We have made changes throughout KCSIE to reflect the changes colleagues are making, in parallel, to Working Together to Safeguard Children (WT).  WT is being consulted on separately and any resulting revisions to the final version will be reflected in KCSIE.

In addition, this consultation also seeks views on a new departmental non-statutory advice document covering sexual violence and sexual harassment between children in schools and colleges.

What happens next

The results of the consultation and the department's response, alongside updated KCSIE guidance, will be published on gov.uk in early summer 2018