What is Safeguarding in Schools?
Safeguarding is the proactive steps we all take to protect children and vulnerable people from harm, abuse, or neglect.
At its core, it means ensuring that every child has the right to grow up feeling safe, healthy, and supported; free from abuse, exploitation, and neglect.
It covers everyone's wellbeing, but it's particularly vital for young people, whose development and life chances can be profoundly shaped by their early experiences.
Recognising when a young person is struggling is one of the most important parts of the safeguarding picture. Signs can be subtle and varied: unexplained changes in behaviour or mood, withdrawal from friends and activities, declining school performance, unexplained injuries, signs of anxiety or low self-esteem, or sudden changes in appearance.
No single sign is definitive, but the combination of small changes - and a gut feeling that something isn't right - is often where safeguarding begins.
While safeguarding is often led by a Designated Safeguarding Lead (DSL) in a school setting, it's everyone's responsibility; every teacher, volunteer, and member of staff has a role to play in keeping students safe.
It's also about far more than reacting when something goes wrong. It's a whole-school approach that includes spotting problems before they escalate and preventing anything that might impair a child's health or development.
Ultimately, it means building a culture where the default assumption is "it could happen here", and where the child's best interests come first, every time.
Why does safeguarding matter - and what does the law say?
Schools have a legal obligation to safeguard students, set out in statutory guidance such as Keeping Children Safe in Education (KCSIE).
KCSIE is issued by the Department for Education. All schools and colleges in England must have regard to it when carrying out their duties to safeguard and promote the welfare of children. Updated annually, it sets out the legal responsibilities of governing bodies, proprietors, and school staff, covering areas including how to respond to a disclosure, safer recruitment of staff, and safeguarding considerations relating to online safety and SEND.
KCSIE defines what schools must do, what they should do, and the standards against which their safeguarding arrangements are assessed during an Ofsted inspection.
What are modern day safeguarding concerns in schools?
The risks children face has shifted significantly, and a lot of them now happen well outside the school gates.
Online Harm: The digital world brings a "4C" risk model: Content (like racism or pornography), Contact (being messaged by strangers), Conduct (how they behave online), and Commerce (scams or gambling).
Harmful Content: This includes everything from misinformation and conspiracy theories to extreme violence.
Bullying: It’s not just in the playground anymore; cyberbullying and prejudice-based bullying can follow a student home 24/7.
Wellbeing: Mental health is now a major safeguarding focus, as issues like self-harm, anxiety, or eating disorders can often be indicators that a child is suffering from abuse or neglect elsewhere.
Grooming: Whether face-to-face or online, perpetrators use can technology to manipulate children into sexual exploitation or criminal activity, including through "county lines" drug networks.
The Manosphere and Misogyny: Schools are now specifically advised to be alert to the influence of misogynistic online figures, who can normalise harassment and deeply harmful attitudes among young people before staff even realise it's happening.
Is PSHE compulsory?
PSHE as a broad subject isn’t fully statutory, but many elements are required by law. Since the Children and Social Work Act 2017 (which came into effect in 2020), schools have been required to teach:
Relationships Education (primary)
Relationships and Sex Education (RSE) (secondary)
Health Education (all schools)
These are often grouped together as RSHE.
With updated guidance rolling out by September 2026, there’s an even stronger focus on:
Mental health
Personal safety
Online risks (including things like deepfakes and financial scams)
We broke down the latest changes in our 2025 RSHE Guidance Explained blog.
What safeguarding challenges do schools face?
Keeping a school genuinely safe is complex work, and it doesn't get easier. Technology alone moves faster than most training cycles; AI-generated deepfakes of intimate images are a reality staff are now having to navigate, and that's a difficult thing to prepare people for.
There's also the ongoing challenge of professional curiosity: making sure staff don't simply take excuses at face value, but actually stop and ask whether something more serious might be going on underneath.
Information sharing is another real pressure point. Some staff worry that data protection legislation - GDPR, for instance - prevents them from speaking up. It doesn't, and the guidance is clear: concerns about sharing information must never get in the way of a child's safety.
Then there are the specific barriers facing certain groups of students. Children with SEND may have communication difficulties that make it harder to disclose what's happening. Gender-questioning children may be experiencing isolation or distress that's genuinely difficult for staff to pick up on. There's no single answer to any of this, it's a constant balancing act of training, vigilance, and building the kind of trust that means children feel they can actually come to you.
Why does PSHE matter now more than ever?
Growing up today looks very different to even a decade ago.
Young people are navigating a world shaped by social media, constant connectivity, and rapidly evolving technology, whilst this can bring opportunity, it also brings a bunch of risks.
From online bullying and comparison culture to exposure to harmful or misleading content, learners are often dealing with challenges that don’t switch off when the school day ends. Add in the rise of AI-generated content, like deepfakes, it’s becoming harder than ever to know what’s real, what’s trustworthy, and what’s safe.
At the same time, conversations around mental health, identity, relationships, and consent are more visible, but not always clearer or easier to navigate.
That’s where PSHE becomes essential.
How does Peerscroller support safeguarding in schools?
At Corpus Christi Catholic College in Leeds, a Year 9 student approached a staff member after engaging with ADHD-related content on Peerscroller, leading to appropriate support being put in place through the SEND department.
At Newman Catholic College in Oldham, safeguarding staff used a Peerscroller video about young carers within a virtual assembly, leading to referrals and helping staff identify students they were previously unaware were acting as young carers.
Engagement with content around period poverty at Newman also highlighted unmet need within the school community, resulting in additional support and resources being made available for students.
Bridging the gap between school and home
Peerscroller gives young people, teachers, parents and carers a trusted source of reliable, relatable information, helping bridge the gap between school and home. Through short-form videos made for (and by) Gen A-Z, Peerscroller explores issues ranging from healthy relationships and emotional wellbeing to emerging concerns such as vaping, misogyny and harmful online content.
Aligned to DfE RSHE guidance and the PSHE Association framework, Peerscroller is used by safeguarding teams, DSLs and pastoral staff to support preventative safeguarding approaches and encourage conversations that young people may otherwise struggle to initiate. By providing trusted, age-appropriate content, the platform helps schools and colleges identify emerging needs earlier and connect students with the right support pathways.
Built into everyday safeguarding platforms
Safeguarding teams can use Peerscroller content to support conversations with students on a 1:1 basis, within small group interventions, or during wider family meetings as part of an early intervention approach.
Through Peerscroller's recent integration with CPOMS, pilot schools can also allocate videos as direct actions within safeguarding workflows, giving staff and students an opportunity to explore concerns before they escalate further.
If you’re interested in learning more about Peerscroller and how we can support with safeguarding, make an enquiry here: https://www.peerscroller.com/organisations