The Department for Education has opened consultation on the document that will replace the current Safeguarding advice to schools and colleges contained in ‘Safeguarding Children and Safer Recruitment’. The new guidance is to be called ‘Keeping Children Safe in Education’. The draft consultation document has been published along with the draft statutory guidance.

The guidance is deliberately much shorter than the document it replaces with a ‘focus on the crucial aspects of safeguarding‘. The document emphasises a reduction in national guidance and places an increased stress on professionals using their own judgement in local circumstances.

The most significant change will end the national ‘Safer Recruitment’ training and remove the obligation for interview panels to include someone who has completed the ‘Safer Recruitment’ training. However, schools will still have to undertake ‘Safer Recruitment’ training, which is ‘tailored to their staff needs…to ensure they are competent in making safer recruitment decisions‘.

The new guidance makes it clear that there is an expectation there will be fewer background checks on people working in schools.… more

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On 15th April 2013, a key safeguarding document came into force, ‘Working Together to Safeguard Children (2013)’. It replaces a document with the same title that was first published in 2010. The new document is much slimmer and whilst areas of guidance have been removed, the emphasis is on developing local procedures. The legislation that underpins this guidance document has not altered and most of the responsibilities and procedures remain the same. Much of the document is guidance for Local Authority Safeguarding Boards (LSCB) and its impact in schools will be negligible.

The following aspects remain as statutory guidance:

From a school perspective, Key Changes include:

Flow Chart 1
Action to be taken after referral
‘Working Together to Safeguard Children 2013′ page 27

Links
Working Together to Safeguard Children 2013

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Since December 2012 there have been a number of changes in the way that schools are expected to manage the safeguarding of the children and young people in their care. A summary of these changes is set out in the document below and are contextualised in the ten pages that follow.

The document outlines changes in the following aspects of safeguarding:

Download the document here: Safeguarding Changes - January 2013… more

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