Guides for designated safeguarding leads and children's homes: Safeguarding Context

Ofsted and safeguarding: what inspectors and KCSIE ask about harm outside school

Ofsted's toolkit and Keeping children safe in education expect schools to look for harm outside the home as well as inside it. This guide quotes what they say and sets out the evidence a designated safeguarding lead can put behind it, and its limits.
What is contextual safeguarding? What it means for a school, and harm outside the home

Keeping children safe in education asks every member of staff to consider whether children are at risk outside their families. This guide explains what contextual safeguarding means in a school, the forms of harm the guidance names, and the public evidence that can stand behind it.
Contextual safeguarding in a school policy: a worked paragraph

Keeping children safe in education asks the DSL to consider harm outside the family and the policy to be reviewed at least annually. This guide builds one paragraph on the local context, sentence by sentence, from facts a school can actually evidence.
The annual safeguarding update for staff: what to cover about the local area

Keeping children safe in education expects staff to receive safeguarding updates at least annually. This guide sets out what the local part of that update should cover, and how to keep it to one page staff will actually read.
County lines and criminal exploitation: what the public data can and cannot tell you

Police-recorded crime says something about the area around a school and nothing about who is being exploited. This guide draws the line between the two so a policy does not overclaim.
The safeguarding governor's annual report: an evidence checklist

An annual safeguarding report to governors is only as strong as the evidence behind each statement. This checklist pairs every claim with the record that supports it.
Keeping learners safe: evidencing the local context for a school in Wales

Keeping learners safe asks each school in Wales to address its needs in line with its own circumstances. This guide sets out the local evidence a designated safeguarding person can gather, where the Welsh sources differ from England's, and how it fits the regional safeguarding board.
Do CPOMS and MyConcern cover contextual safeguarding?

They are built to record concerns about individual children, which is where contextual safeguarding starts, not to gather the public evidence about the area around the school: what children's services record across the authority, what the police record around the gate, and where pupils wait and gather.
Is a crime map enough evidence of local risks for Ofsted?

A crime map is a start, not the whole answer. It shows what the police record around an address; it cannot show what children's services record about harm to children, where pupils gather after school, or how the school has acted, which an inspector may ask about.
How a designated safeguarding lead can gather the local context themselves

Every source the local context needs is public and free. This guide lists them, says what to take from each and how long it takes, so a DSL can do it by hand, and says when buying it in makes sense.
What to look for in a contextual safeguarding report or tool

Eight tests to put to any report, dashboard or service that claims to describe a school's local context, from whether it quotes the guidance it answers to whether it can ever identify a pupil.
What is a safeguarding threshold document, and where is my area's?

A threshold document, sometimes called the continuum of need, is the local safeguarding partnership's guide to when a concern about a child should go to early help or to children's social care. Every partnership in England is expected to publish one; in Wales the Wales Safeguarding Procedures apply, with threshold guidance from some regional boards. This guide says what it is for and where to find yours.
What a trust should tell its board about local safeguarding risks

A trust board needs to know that every school understands its own surroundings and that the trust has oversight across them. This guide sets out what to put in front of the board, school by school and across the estate, without ranking schools.
Section 175 safeguarding audit: evidencing the local context (and section 157)

Many local authorities and safeguarding partnerships ask schools for an annual safeguarding audit. This guide sets out how to answer its questions about local risks with evidence rather than impressions, and what to attach.
Early years provision in schools: what the EYFS adds for the designated safeguarding lead

A school with a nursery or reception class is under the early years foundation stage framework as well as Keeping children safe in education. It needs no separate policy, but the policy must cover allegations against staff and staff must be alert to concerns in a young child's life at home or elsewhere.
Road danger at the school gate: reading collision data and making a School Street request

Collision records are public, mapped and free. This guide explains how to read them for the roads around a school and what a School Street request to the highway authority needs.

For children's homes and supported accommodation

Regulation 46: the children's home location risk assessment, and what Ofsted asks

Regulation 46 requires the registered person of a children's home in England to review the appropriateness and suitability of the home's location at least once in each calendar year, judged against whether children there are effectively safeguarded, and to consult each relevant person when they do. There is no set format. This guide sets out what the guidance expects the review to cover, who to consult and what Ofsted looks for.
Supported accommodation location assessment: what regulation 6 asks for each premises

A provider of supported accommodation for 16 and 17 year olds must carry out a location assessment (often called a location risk assessment) of each premises at least once in each calendar year, consulting each relevant person, and the Department for Education's guide asks for a full risk assessment in each review. This guide sets out what that means premises by premises.

£149 for 12 months

Evidence of the local risks around your school, college, nursery or club

The public evidence about the area around your school, college, nursery or club, written into your safeguarding policy, staff briefing and board report for the year ahead. We email you when it is ready, usually within an hour of payment.

The report
The staff briefing and slides
The evidence pack
The dashboard for the year

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