KCSIE 2025: What’s New and Why It’s Another Year of Technical Changes
The Department for Education (DfE) has confirmed that the 2025 update to Keeping Children Safe in Education (KCSIE) will once again consist of technical changes only. While this may come as a relief for schools already navigating a complex safeguarding landscape, it’s important to understand what these changes involve and why the DfE has taken this approach for a second consecutive year.
What Are the 2025 Technical Changes?
Although described as “technical,” the 2025 updates still include several clarifications and additions that schools should be aware of:
- Online Safety: The guidance now explicitly identifies misinformation, disinformation, and conspiracy theories as safeguarding harms. Schools are encouraged to use the DfE’s Plan Technology for Your School service to assess their filtering and monitoring systems
- Cybersecurity: Updates clarify that the DfE’s cybersecurity standards are designed to help schools improve their resilience against cyber threats
- Artificial Intelligence: New links have been added to DfE guidance on the use of generative AI in education, reflecting the growing relevance of AI in school settings
- Alternative Provision (AP): The guidance reinforces the need for schools to maintain oversight of pupils in AP, including regular reviews of attendance and safeguarding arrangements including safeguarding checks
- Virtual School Heads: These roles now carry a non-statutory responsibility to promote the educational achievement of children in kinship care, aligning with updates to Working Together to Safeguard Children (2023)
- Attendance: The guidance now reflects that Working Together to Improve School Attendance is statutory, underscoring the safeguarding implications of persistent absence
- Future Additions: The DfE has indicated that the final September version of KCSIE 2025 will include links to revised guidance on Relationships, Sex and Health Education (RSHE) and Gender Questioning Children
Why Only Technical Changes Again?
After several years of significant revisions including the introduction of online checks during recruitment and expanded definitions of safeguarding the last year and next year has and will focus more on a period of consolidation. This approach allows schools to embed previous changes more effectively, focus on implementation, and avoid the disruption that can come with major policy overhauls. It also gives the DfE time to align KCSIE with other evolving statutory frameworks, such as the RSHE review and guidance on gender identity, which are expected later this year.
What Should Schools Do Now?
Even though the changes are technical, schools should still:
- Review the updated information guidance in full before 1st September 2025.
- Update internal policies and training materials to reflect the clarified definitions and new links.
- Ensure Designated Safeguarding Leads (DSLs) and governors are aware of the updates, particularly those relating to online safety and alternative provision.
- Prepare for further updates in the autumn when the final version is published.
Resources:
Visit the UK Government website for more information on KCSIE >>
If you require any support with allegation management, safeguarding investigations or safer recruitment training for your school then please contact us at info@hrconnect.org.uk
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