Safeguarding Essentials Resources - Guidance Documents

A key element of e-safety provision in schools is the clear and effective use of reporting procedures. Ofsted will expect all staff and students to know how to report e-safety incidents, and how to recognise when an incident has occurred. The guidance document starts from a common sense approach which is easy for all schools to implement, and helps teaching staff understand what constitutes illegal or inappropriate content. They are then given instructions as to the appropriate response and reporting mechanism. Recommendations are made as to best practice and the protection of children and staff in case of an e-safety incident.

What makes a password strong? The key to creating a strong password is to understand how your password might be stolen, hacked or guessed. This guidance document gives teaching staff an overview of how this is done, and how you can protect yourself. The information can easily be edited and reproduced for the benefit of students or younger pupils. The guidance includes tips for strong passwords, what to avoid doing when you create a password, and useful links for secure password generation, remembering passwords, and creating an encrypted text file to store your passwords. Password security is a key issue in e-safety for everybody, so it is vital that teaching staff understand this and are able to prove to Ofsted that password security is taken seriously in school

Ofsted have identified the lack of effective procedures for securing data in school as a weak point. As part of a school's e-safety strategy, it is vital that the large amount of personal and sensitive data that a school is likely to be responsible for is properly secured and treated. This briefing document gives teachers an overview of the key issues, including defining personal data, the Data Protection Principles, the difference between personal and private data, and what to include in a fair processing and privacy policy. The guidance also offers advice about handling personal data on portable devices and remote access, as well as encryption and correct disposal of personal data. Best practice tips are also included.

All school and college staff should be aware that abuse, neglect and safeguarding issues are rarely stand-alone events that can be covered by one definition or label. In most cases, multiple issues will overlap with one another.

This checklist is broken down into four sections to help staff identify possible issues. If this checklist raises any concerns about a particular child, it should be discussed with a designated safeguarding lead.

This alcohol checklist can be used by school leaders when they are reviewing their alcohol education provision.

It is important that schools regularly use this checklist to ensure that policies, training and lesson delivery is up to date.

Since 1st July 2015, all schools have a duty under the Counter Terrorism And Security Act to keep children safe from harm, especially from the risks of radicalisation and extremism.

This checklist will help identify the key elements your school should have in place.

The bullying checklist can be used by school leaders when reviewing their anti-bullying provision.

It is important that schools regularly use this checklist to ensure that policies, training and lesson delivery are all up to date.

CSE is an important area for all schools to include as part of their safeguarding policy. This checklist is a self-review tool to support the school in ensuring that it has robust policies and procedures in place to deal with any risks associated with CSE.

The Safeguarding Essentials checklist is designed to assist schools when reviewing their drugs education provision.

The checklist is designed as a self-review tool to help identify key provisions for drugs awareness that should be in place as well as actions that the school should take to ensure that policies, training and lesson delivery is up to date.

Female Genital Mutilation is an illegal act. However, around 60,000 girls are thought to currently be at risk of the procedure in the UK.

This checklist for schools and staff provides a quick guide to signs that could suggest that a girl is at risk of undergoing the procedure. It also offers indicators that may demonstrate that FGM has taken place.

The role which the school governor plays in not only developing, but also implementing an e-safety strategy in school is vital.

The Department for Education have highlighted a number of key features of effective practice in relation to online safety in schools and Ofsted have placed greater emphasis on inspecting the effectiveness of the governing body in ensuring that schools meet all of these criteria.

This checklist can be used by school governors as a starting point for assessing the provision in your school.

This resource sheet supports the KSCIE online training course and provides links to further information across a range of safeguarding topics.

School leaders can use the sexting checklist when reviewing their strategies in dealing with incidents of children and young people creating, sharing and possessing indecent images (sometimes known as Youth Produced Sexual Imagery).

It is important that schools regularly use this checklist to ensure that policies, training and lesson delivery is up to date.