Keeping children safe in education (KCSIE) 2025: draft guidance issued

Keeping children safe in education (KCSIE) 2025 has been published for information purposes only. The guidance was published in July 2025, later than expected, and there has been no explanation for the delay. This wait has caused some understandable concern with safeguarding leads, as the previous government stated that the 2025 version would be “substantively updated”. Lauranne Nolan, Associate Solicitor and Safeguarding Lead in the Keoghs Specialist Abuse team considers the guidance further.

The guidance

As always, the guidance sets out what schools and colleges in England must do to safeguard and promote the welfare of children and young people under the age of 18. It is directed at:

• governing bodies of maintained schools, nursery schools and colleges;
• proprietors of independent schools and non-maintained special schools;
• management of committees of pupil referral units (PRUs); and
• senior leadership teams.

The guidance is updated annually and replaces previous editions. As stated above, the indication given was that the 2025 edition would contain a significant number of changes. This was due to a call for evidence on safeguarding practice which closed in June 2024, with any outcomes from that expected to be incorporated this year. The delay to the KCSIE 2025 guidance has caused many schools to feel that they are being put in an impossible position to ensure any changes are in place for the start of the new school year.

The changes

Despite the early indications that KCSIE 2025 would contain significant changes, there are only minor alterations to the guidance. There have been some technical changes, such as updates to links and name changes for organisations as well as new paragraph numbers, so it is important in the first instance to check your policies to make sure they are still correctly referenced.

There are several reasons why the 2025 guidance does not have many changes, such as:

• It was expected that the government call for evidence on safeguarding practice, which closed in June 2024, would create a significant revision to KCSIE 2025, but the findings were never published.
• The 2024 general election is thought to have paused or reset several Department of Education timelines, which in turn would have affected the input into KCSIE 2025.
• The Crime and Policing Bill and the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill – two major pieces of legislation that contain measures which would impact KCSIE guidance – are still progressing through parliament.

The final version will be published on 1 September 2025, and the government expects that this will include revised guidance for Relationships, Sex and Health Education (RSHE) (it is anticipated this will be inserted in the ‘opportunities to teach safeguarding’ section) and gender questioning children; as a result there may be some further changes to paragraphs.

Some changes to note are:

Online safety

The 2025 guidance adds disinformation, misinformation and conspiracy theories to the list of content risks under online safety. Disinformation is the deliberate creation and spreading of false or misleading content, such as fake news, whereas misinformation is the unintentional spreading of this false or misleading content.

Filtering and monitoring

KCSIE 2025 includes a link to the Department of Education guidance: “Generative AI: product safety expectations”. This provides guidance on generative artificial intelligence, explains how filtering and monitoring requirements apply to the use of generative AI in education, and supports schools to use generative AI safely. It should be noted that the link in the July guidance is actually incorrect – we expect to see this updated in the final version.

Alternative provision

The updated guidance provides additional information to clarify and reflect existing alternative provision guidance. Alternative provision is defined as education arranged by local authorities for children of compulsory school age who, because of exclusion, illness or other reasons, would not receive suitable education. Schools should:

• gain written confirmation from the alternative provider that appropriate staff safeguarding checks have been carried out, as well as written information about any arrangements that may put the child at risk;
• have records of the address of the alternative provider and any subcontracted provision or satellite sites the child may attend; and
• regularly review any alternative provision placements to make sure the placement continues to be safe and meets the child’s needs – if safeguarding concerns occur, the placement should be immediately reviewed and ended if necessary.

Keoghs comment

While the final guidance is awaited, many safeguarding leads will be relieved to note that the guidance actually contains the fewest number of changes of any updated version.

We would suggest reviewing any policies and procedures in place at the moment, identifying any changes in draft, which could save time later. Alternatively, schools will need to be flexible and build in time in early September to address any changes when the final version is published.

We will of course provide you with an update on any further developments.