Updated Keeping Children Safe in Education guidance for September 2023

The guidance for the start of the next academic year has limited changes from previous versions but has a greater emphasis on filtering and monitoring IT systems within schools.

The current Keeping Children Safe in Education 2022 and the version to be used from 01 September 2023 can be found here.

After the Department for Education (DfE) was criticised for current safeguarding guidelines around filtering and monitoring of IT systems the DfE published new guidelines for schools on meeting the standard for filtering and monitoring in March.  These standards have now been incorporated into KCSIE 2023. All school staff will need to undergo training on the filtering and monitoring of online devices.

Governing bodies and proprietors have overall strategic responsibility for meeting this standard. They should make sure that filtering and monitoring provision is reviewed, which can be part of a wider online safety review, at least annually.  To do this, they should identify and assign a member of the senior leadership team and a governor, to be responsible for ensuring these standards are met.

The review should be conducted by members of the senior leadership team, the designated safeguarding lead (DSL), and the IT service provider and involve the responsible governor. The results of the online safety review should be recorded for reference and made available to those entitled to inspect that information.

While the KCSIE guidance is new, the DfE points out that schools should already be meeting their responsibilities around filtering and monitoring IT content.