Keeping Children Safe in Education (KCSiE) 2026 came into force on 1 September 2026, replacing the 2025 edition as the statutory guidance every school and college in England must follow. The Department for Education published the guidance early, for information only, so that schools and colleges could prepare over the summer term — but it’s now live, and it’s not a light refresh. Several sections have been substantially rewritten, and a number of the changes will directly affect how schools handle recruitment, staff training and day-to-day safeguarding decisions.

At First Class Teachers, safeguarding compliance sits at the centre of everything we do — it’s the standard every placement, every check and every member of staff we supply is measured against. This is our summary of the changes: what’s actually different in KCSiE 2026, and what schools and colleges need to do about it before the term gets much further.

What is KCSiE, and why does the 2026 update matter?

KCSiE is the Department for Education’s statutory guidance on how schools and colleges should safeguard and promote the welfare of children. It sits alongside Working Together to Safeguard Children, and sets out what governing bodies and proprietors, senior leaders and all school and college staff must do to safeguard children, from safer recruitment through to how child protection concerns are identified, recorded and escalated. Because it’s statutory, schools aren’t just expected to follow it — they’re required to, and inspectors will check against the current version, not the one a setting happens to be more familiar with. That’s what makes each year’s update worth taking seriously. KCSiE 2026 isn’t a cosmetic edit: it introduces new statutory duties, removes an entire route some staff previously used to meet their training obligations, and rewrites parts of the guidance dealing with some of the most serious safeguarding concerns schools face.

Part One now applies to every member of staff

The biggest practical change is the withdrawal of Annex A. Previously, staff who didn’t work directly with children; site teams, catering, office and admin staff — could read a condensed summary instead of the full Part One. That option is gone. KCSiE 2026 is explicit: all staff, whether or not they work directly with children, must read Part One in full. For schools, this means updating induction and refresher training records for every category of staff, not just teaching and pastoral teams. Any training pack still pointing non-teaching staff to the old summary version needs replacing before it’s used again, and new starters from this term onward should be given the full Part One from day one.

Safer recruitment and regulated activity: The supervision exemption is gone

This is the change with the most direct impact on recruitment. The Crime and Policing Act 2026 is behind the removal of the supervision exemption that previously let some volunteers work with children under supervision without needing a full DBS check. Under KCSiE 2026, any volunteer teaching, training or supervising children for more than three days in a month, or overnight, now falls within regulated activity and requires a DBS check at the appropriate level. Schools and colleges must reassess every volunteer arrangement against this test now, rather than waiting for it to surface at an inspection or, worse, after an incident. For agencies and settings working with supply staff, this is also a reminder of why safer recruitment has to be treated as a live discipline rather than a paperwork exercise — checks, references, identity verification and right-to-work evidence carried out properly, before anyone sets foot in a classroom, not tidied up after.

Online safety: AI-generated images, deepfakes and new terminology

KCSiE 2026 addresses artificial intelligence directly, and in far more detail than previous editions. The guidance makes clear that an indecent image of a child doesn’t need to be a real photograph to be treated as a safeguarding matter, an image that has been digitally altered or wholly generated using artificial intelligence, including deepfakes, triggers the same response and referral duties as any other image-based abuse, regardless of whether a young person appeared to “consent” to its creation. The language has changed too: “indecent” and “sexting” have been replaced throughout with “the making or sharing of nude or semi-nude images,” a shift intended to reduce stigma and make the new guidance clearer for both staff and pupils. Alongside this, schools and colleges now have a firmer obligation on filtering and monitoring: an annual review of the effectiveness of internet filtering and monitoring systems, documented formally, with senior leadership, the designated safeguarding lead and IT staff all involved. A verbal assurance that “filtering is fine” won’t be enough if this is ever checked.

Part Five rewritten: sexual harassment, sexual violence and misogyny

Part Five has been substantially restructured. “Child-on-child abuse” is now explicitly retitled to include harassment and violence, and the section on child-on-child sexual harassment and sexual violence has been rewritten with new material on consent and on referring cases into the Family Help framework. Reflecting findings from the Casey Audit, KCSiE 2026 expands its treatment of violence against women and girls, with more direct language on misogyny and the behavioural continuum that runs from harassment and prejudice-based harm through to harmful sexual behaviour. Designated safeguarding leads will want to read this section closely — the referral routes, and the language schools are expected to use with pupils, staff and families, have both shifted.

Mental health treated as a safeguarding concern

Mental health guidance has been substantially expanded. KCSiE 2026 is clearer that a mental health concern can itself be a safeguarding issue, not simply a wellbeing matter to be handled separately, and it puts more weight on staff recognising early warning signs in children requiring mental health support and escalating appropriately rather than waiting for a crisis point. This ties into the wider Family Help and social care framework, which the guidance now references more consistently when setting out how schools should work with children’s social care.

Other additions worth flagging

A handful of smaller but meaningful additions round out KCSiE 2026:

• Family Help terminology now runs through the guidance, aligning KCSiE with wider social care reform and local referral thresholds.
• Mobile phones in schools get a dedicated new section, reinforcing expectations around phone-free environments and clear, communicated policy.
• Children who are questioning their gender receive expanded, specific safeguarding guidance, alongside continued LGB-related support.
• New material addresses young carers, pupils with medical conditions, and safeguarding considerations in a sport context.
• DSL cover arrangements have been clarified, including expectations for deputy cover during a designated safeguarding lead’s absence.
• References to trainee teachers have been added throughout, closing a gap in how the previous guidance addressed this group.
• The guidance broadens its coverage of racism, faith-based prejudice and other forms of discrimination as safeguarding risks in their own right.

What are the key changes to safeguarding in 2026, in one line?

If there’s a single thread running through KCSiE 2026, it’s this: safeguarding concerns are being defined more broadly, and the guidance for schools and colleges is being written to cover a wider set of staff. Part One now reaches every member of staff, not a subset of them. Safer recruitment now reaches volunteers who previously sat outside regulated activity. Mental health and online harms are treated as core safeguarding territory rather than adjacent issues. The direction is consistent even where the individual changes look unrelated.

What schools and colleges should do now

With KCSiE 2026 already in force, schools must work through a practical priority list:

• Update child protection, mobile phone and online safety policies to reflect the new guidance.
• Make sure every member of staff — not just teaching and pastoral roles — has read Part One in full, and update training records to support schools and colleges through an inspection or audit.
• Reassess volunteer arrangements against the new DBS threshold now that the supervision exemption has been removed.
• Carry out and formally document the annual filtering and monitoring review.
• Brief governors and trustees on what’s changed and what it means for their oversight duties.
• Refresh the designated safeguarding lead’s knowledge, and confirm deputy cover arrangements are clear and current.

None of this is optional, and most of it touches recruitment and staffing in some way — from the new DBS thresholds for volunteers to the safer recruitment checks that should sit behind every adult working with children, permanent or supply. If you’d like to talk through what KCSiE 2026 means for how your school staffs cover, or want reassurance that everyone placed with you meets the current standard, get in touch with First Class Teachers.

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