What to Expect from KCSIE 2026: A DSL's Guide to the Proposed Changes in Keeping Children Safe in Education 2026

Why This Update Is Bigger Than Usual

Most years, the KCSIE refresh is largely technical — tightening definitions and updating links to other guidance. KCSIE 2026 is different. It carries several genuinely new expectations and reflects a wider direction of travel in child protection, drawing on:

• Learning from recent serious safeguarding incidents and the Casey Audit
• Alignment with the refreshed Working Together to Safeguard Children 2026
• Anticipated reforms under the Children's Wellbeing and Schools Act 2025
• The fast-evolving risk landscape around AI, deepfakes, and online image-based abuse

For DSLs, the practical headline is that the gap between the final version's publication and its September commencement is short. Schools that map the likely changes now will move faster when the guidance is confirmed.

Part One: Every Member of Staff Must Read It in Full

One of the most operationally significant proposals is structural. Under the draft, all staff — regardless of whether they work directly with children — must read Part One of KCSIE in full. The condensed summary that some schools previously asked certain staff to read in place of Part One has been removed.

The annexes have also been renumbered, with the role of the Designated Safeguarding Lead and the "further information" content moving to new annex letters. If your induction materials, staff handbooks or training slides reference KCSIE by annex letter or point staff to the shorter summary, those will need revising before September.

Gender-Questioning Children: The Flagship New Section

The most anticipated addition in KCSIE 2026 is dedicated guidance on supporting pupils who are questioning their gender. The draft frames this firmly as a safeguarding matter, to be approached with sensitivity and professional curiosity while keeping the child's welfare — and the welfare of the wider pupil community — central.

Key expectations in the draft include:

• Schools should not initiate social transition. Any request relating to it must be considered carefully, documented, and supported by a clear, child-centred rationale.
• Single-sex toilets, changing rooms and residential accommodation are to remain protected.
• Decisions must prioritise safeguarding and the best interests of all children, with associated vulnerabilities (such as mental health needs or bullying) actively recognised.
• Schools should engage parents unless doing so would pose a risk to the child.

This is an area where many settings will need new or revised policy, alongside staff training. Identifying a lead now — whether the DSL, SENCO or a designated pastoral lead — will make implementation faster.

Online Safety: AI, Deepfakes and Annual Assurance

Online safety is among the most heavily developed areas of the KCSIE 2026 draft. The proposals strengthen both what schools must do and how they evidence it:

Mobile-Phone-Free Schools "By Default"

The KCSIE 2026 draft reinforces the expectation that schools operate as mobile-phone-free environments by default. In practice, this points toward pupils having no access to phones across the school day — lessons, transitions, breaks and lunch — unless a clearly defined exception has been agreed.

Schools that currently permit phone use at social times should review their behaviour and mobile-phone policies against this expectation now, rather than making reactive changes under time pressure in September.

Child-on-Child Abuse: Broader Definitions, Zero Tolerance

KCSIE 2026 sharpens expectations on preventing, reporting and responding to child-on-child abuse, including harmful sexual behaviour. The draft:

• Sets a clearer zero-tolerance position
• Broadens the categories to encompass serious violence, misogyny and AI-generated imagery
• Raises expectations around accessible pupil reporting mechanisms and consistent staff responses

Child-on-child abuse policies should be reviewed to ensure they reflect these expanded categories — particularly the explicit inclusion of AI-generated imagery and misogyny. These additions connect directly to the wider VAWG agenda running through the draft (see below).

Early Help, Family Help and Multi-Agency Working

The KCSIE 2026 draft clarifies the relationship between school-led early help and the wider multi-agency system, aligning with the Family Help model introduced in Working Together 2026:

• In-school early help focuses on identifying concerns early and providing timely, school-led support through pastoral systems or DSL-coordinated intervention.
• External Family Help involves coordinated, multi-agency support through the local authority where a child's needs exceed what the school can meet alone — bringing together what was previously framed as targeted early help and Section 17 support into a more seamless offer.

The draft also reinforces expectations around thresholds, decision-making and contextual safeguarding, which means staff need confidence in recognising early indicators and knowing how to escalate. For the wider multi-agency context, see our guide to the KCSIE 2025 compliance framework and our early help guide.

Domestic Abuse and Operation Encompass

The KCSIE 2026 draft expands guidance on the statutory Operation Encompass duty, clarifying that:

• Notifications should be shared with schools whenever police attend a domestic abuse incident and believe a child may have been affected
• Notifications should reflect the voice of the child — any statements they made, or behaviour observed during or after the incident
• All Operation Encompass information must be handled in line with data protection law

Operation Encompass became a statutory duty under s.49A of the Domestic Abuse Act 2021, following the Victims and Prisoners Act 2024. KCSIE 2026 makes the expectations at the school end more explicit. DSLs should ensure they have a named Operation Encompass key adult and a clear internal protocol for receiving and acting on notifications.

Mental Health as a Safeguarding Issue

KCSIE 2026 reinforces the link between mental health and wider safeguarding risk, expecting staff to identify early signs of mental health concerns and respond effectively. This dovetails with the recognition in Working Together 2026 that unmet mental-health need frequently underpins the vulnerability that exploiters target.

For DSLs, this is less a new obligation and more an explicit statutory framing of what good practice already looks like. Staff training and supervision should specifically address the pathway from presenting mental health concerns to a safeguarding assessment where the threshold warrants it. See also our guide to mental health and safeguarding.

Safer Recruitment, Online Checks and the SCR

The KCSIE 2026 draft strengthens pre-appointment and record-keeping expectations:

• Online due-diligence checks on shortlisted candidates — reviewing publicly available information, including social media, as part of the pre-appointment process
• Tighter reference verification and recruitment record-keeping
• Updated single central record (SCR) expectations
• Clearer expectations for contractors, volunteers, visitors and trainee teachers specifically named in the section on allegations against staff — confirming they are subject to the same processes as substantive staff

HR teams and safer recruitment leads should review current pre-appointment workflows against these additions and update policy documentation before September.

Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG)

Reflecting national priorities, the KCSIE 2026 draft adds content addressing Violence Against Women and Girls, connecting to the broader work on misogyny, harmful sexual behaviour and serious violence that runs through the child-on-child abuse and online-safety sections.

This is an area where curriculum links matter: RSHE, personal development and PSHE provision should address VAWG themes in age-appropriate ways. Schools should ensure that their approach to misogynistic behaviour — including misogynistic language, "incel" ideology and gender-based harassment — is reflected in both policy and staff training. See our guide to misogyny and incel culture in schools.

What DSLs Should Do Now

Because KCSIE 2026 is still in draft, schools should not change live policy yet — KCSIE 2025 remains the statutory baseline. But you can prepare so that implementation in September is fast and confident:

Related Guidance

• The DSL Compliance Guide: What KCSIE 2025 Demands of Your School — the current statutory baseline, with 20-point compliance checklist
• KCSIE 2025 Plain-English Guide for DSLs
• DSL Autumn Term Toolkit — checklist and action plan for the new academic year
• Mental Health & Safeguarding Guide
• Child-on-Child Abuse Guide — KCSIE 2025 Part 5 duties and school response
• Misogyny & Incel Culture in Schools
• Early Help Guide — WT2026 statutory duty and Family Help model
• Generative AI & Safeguarding in Schools