2,700 words*
Introduction
Safeguarding is not the exclusive responsibility of the Designated Safeguarding Lead. It is not the province of pastoral staff alone. It does not belong only to senior leaders or to those with specific safeguarding titles. Under the statutory framework that governs schools in England, every single adult who comes into contact with children and their families carries a duty of care that is both legal and moral.
This article examines what the duty of care means for the full range of school staff, from the governing body to the classroom teacher to the teaching assistant and administrative worker, and what it requires of each in practice. It draws on Keeping Children Safe in Education (KCSIE) 2025, Working Together to Safeguard Children and the broader research base on effective safeguarding in schools.
The Legal Foundation
Under the Education Act 2002, all maintained schools have a statutory duty to carry out their functions with a view to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of their pupils. An equivalent duty is placed on independent schools, including academies and free schools, through the Independent School Standards Regulations. The statutory guidance in KCSIE gives detailed effect to these duties, setting out what each category of staff must know, do and be supported to do.
The House of Commons Library briefing on safeguarding in schools (2024) describes schools as an important part of the wider system for safeguarding children in England, positioned uniquely to identify concerns early and prevent them from escalating. This positioning is not accidental; it reflects the daily, sustained, cross-contextual contact that school staff have with children. A class teacher who sees a child every morning is, in many circumstances, the adult best placed to notice a change that signals harm.
> Source: House of Commons Library, Safeguarding in English Schools > (2024).
The Governing Body's Safeguarding Responsibilities
The governing body carries strategic leadership responsibility for the school's safeguarding arrangements. This is not a delegable function in the sense that it can be handed entirely to the headteacher or the DSL: governors must actively assure themselves that safeguarding policies and procedures are effective, comply with the law and are implemented throughout the school.
In practice, this means the governing body must:
> • Facilitate a whole-school approach to safeguarding, ensuring child > protection is embedded in all relevant policies and processes rather > than confined to a standalone document > > • Ensure effective safeguarding and child protection policies are in > place and reviewed at least annually > > • Maintain safer recruitment procedures, including all required checks > on new staff and unsupervised volunteers > > • Ensure all permanent staff, the principal and volunteers undertake > safeguarding training and receive regular updates, including on online > safety > > • Ensure that the DSL and governors remain current with child > protection legislation, guidance and local agency developments > > • Remedy without delay any deficiencies or weaknesses in safeguarding > arrangements brought to their attention > > • Have regard to the Teachers' Standards, which require all teachers > to manage behaviour effectively and have a clear understanding of the > needs of all pupils
Governors should designate a specific governor for safeguarding who maintains sufficient knowledge and expertise to challenge the school's leadership on safeguarding matters. This is not a role that can be filled by a well-intentioned lay person who receives minimal training; it requires genuine engagement with current guidance and practice.
The DSL: Leadership of the Safeguarding System
The Designated Safeguarding Lead is the operational core of the school's safeguarding system. KCSIE 2025 specifies that the DSL must be a member of the senior leadership team, reflecting the importance of the role and its requirement for authority, credibility and access across the school.
The DSL's responsibilities are extensive and demanding. They include:
> • Recognising and identifying signs of abuse, neglect and other harm, > whether online or offline > > • Coordinating all matters relating to safeguarding and child > protection in accordance with the school's policy > > • Building and maintaining effective working relationships with local > safeguarding partners, children's social care, the police, health > services and other relevant agencies > > • Attending relevant multi-agency meetings and specialist training, > including updated training at least every two years > > • Ensuring all staff have access to and understand the school's > safeguarding policy and procedures > > • Being available to members of the school community at all times, > with contact details displayed widely for students and staff > > • Ensuring that all free time, including break time, sports sessions > and boarding supervision, is appropriately monitored > > • Maintaining accurate and secure records of all safeguarding > concerns, discussions, decisions and their outcomes > > • When a child leaves the school, transferring safeguarding files > securely and directly to the DSL at the child's new educational > establishment
The DSL is not a solitary role. The most effective DSLs are those who lead a safeguarding team, develop the knowledge and confidence of colleagues throughout the school and ensure that the school's safeguarding culture is embedded rather than centralised.
All Staff: The First Line of Recognition
KCSIE is explicit that all staff have responsibilities in safeguarding that go beyond passive compliance. Every teacher, teaching assistant, support worker, administrative staff member and volunteer must understand what those responsibilities are and be equipped to fulfil them.
The core responsibilities of all staff include:
> • Knowing what to look for: identifying the signs and indicators of > abuse, neglect, harmful sexual behaviour, online exploitation and > other forms of harm > > • Providing a safe environment: ensuring that the spaces and > relationships for which they are responsible are physically and > emotionally safe for every child > > • Identifying children who may benefit from early help: recognising > emerging concerns before they escalate to the threshold of statutory > intervention > > • Reporting promptly to the DSL any concern, observation or > disclosure, however minor it may appear > > • Responding to incidents in a sensitive, empathetic and supportive > manner that is consistent with the school's safeguarding approach
The significance of early identification cannot be overstated. Research reviewed by the House of Commons Library confirms that the unique positioning of school staff enables concerns to be identified before they escalate into serious harm. Yet this potential is only realised when staff are trained, confident and embedded in a culture where raising concerns is normalised rather than treated as exceptional or professionally risky.
The Whole-School Safeguarding Approach
Individual duty of care is most effective when it operates within a whole-school approach to safeguarding. A whole-school approach means that safeguarding is not a function that lives in the DSL's office but a value and a practice that is present in every classroom, every corridor, every interaction between staff and children, every policy and every professional decision.
The governing body's strategic responsibility, the DSL's operational leadership, the awareness and responsiveness of all staff and the explicit teaching of safety and self-protection to children must all work together as a coherent system. Where one element is weak, the whole system is weakened. A school with an excellent DSL but undertrained classroom staff is not a safe school. A school with clear policies but a leadership team that does not model their values is not a safe school.
> Safeguarding is everyone's responsibility. The role of the DSL is to > lead and coordinate, not to be the only person in the building who is > paying attention to children's wellbeing and safety.
Early Help: Acting Before the Threshold
A significant dimension of the duty of care that is frequently underemphasised is the responsibility to identify children who may benefit from early help. Early help means providing support as soon as a problem emerges, at any point in a child's life, rather than waiting until concerns have escalated to the threshold for statutory intervention.
KCSIE 2025 explicitly places this responsibility on all staff, not only the DSL. The ability to recognise a child who is beginning to struggle, whose family circumstances are changing, whose emotional or physical presentation is shifting in ways that may indicate unmet need, and to respond quickly and proportionately with appropriate support, is a core component of the duty of care that every adult in a school carries.
Early help is not only better for children. It is also better for schools, for families and for the safeguarding system more broadly. Research and serious case reviews have consistently shown that failures to act on early signs of emerging harm carry a far greater cost, in human and institutional terms, than early, proportionate intervention.
The Cost of Inaction: Evidence from Serious Case Reviews
The statutory guidance in Working Together to Safeguard Children is unambiguous: research and serious case reviews have repeatedly shown the dangers of failing to take effective action. The examples of poor practice identified in serious case reviews include failing to act on and refer early signs of abuse and neglect, poor record keeping, failing to listen to the views of the child, failing to reassess concerns when situations do not improve and a lack of challenge to those who appear not to be taking action.
These failures are not, in most cases, failures of bad faith. They are failures of knowledge, training, confidence and culture. Staff who do not know the signs of harm cannot identify them. Staff who are not supported to raise concerns will not raise them. Staff who work in schools where safeguarding is treated as an administrative burden rather than a lived commitment will absorb and reflect that institutional attitude.
The duty of care is most fully realised when it is grounded not only in statutory obligation but in a genuine, shared conviction that the protection of every child is the school's most fundamental responsibility.
Conclusion
The duty of care that every school staff member carries is not a passive obligation. It is an active, daily, relational practice that requires knowledge, training, courage and the full support of the institution. Governing bodies that take their strategic responsibilities seriously, DSLs who lead with expertise and visibility, and staff at every level who are trained, confident and genuinely committed to children's welfare together constitute a safeguarding system that is far more than the sum of its parts.
The children in any school deserve nothing less than that full system, fully operational, every day.
References: Education Act 2002 | KCSIE 2025 | Working Together to Safeguard Children | House of Commons Library, Safeguarding in English Schools (2024) | Teachers' Standards