Digital safety after September’s updates: who sees the alert, and who acts?

01 / Begin with responsibility at the school

Begin with responsibility at the school

The filtering and monitoring standard identifies the importance of leadership, safeguarding and technical roles. The school should know who owns the review, who receives relevant reports and who makes the safeguarding response. Check the current standard and Keeping Children Safe in Education when assessing the arrangement. A contract for technical support does not by itself settle the school’s accountability.2

Ask each responsible person to describe the same pathway. What happens when a serious concern is detected? What information reaches the DSL? Who covers absence? Who can distinguish a technical fault from a pupil concern? If the accounts differ, repair the process before requesting another dashboard. The objective is an arrangement that works on an ordinary busy day. A named role in a policy is useful only if the person understands it and has the time, access and authority to act.

02 / Test the complete alert pathway

Test the complete alert pathway

Use a safe, agreed test with the technical and safeguarding leads. Do not expose pupils to harmful material to demonstrate that a filter works. The test should establish that the relevant event is recognised, the report reaches the right person and the school knows what action would follow. Technical checks and safeguarding decisions are different parts of the exercise.

Record what was tested and what was not. A successful test on one managed device does not prove that every device, account or location has the same protection. Identify the school’s actual arrangements for staff and pupils, guest access, off-site use and any permitted personal devices. The scope should be understandable to leadership. If a gap exists, decide how it will be managed and communicated while it is resolved, rather than allow the word filtered to conceal different levels of protection.

03 / Keep teaching access in the discussion

Keep teaching access in the discussion

Filtering should protect pupils without unnecessarily obstructing teaching. Staff need a clear route to report overblocking or request a review of legitimate content. The school should assess such requests through the appropriate process, not encourage informal workarounds that weaken protection. A recurring workaround is a useful signal that the arrangement is not meeting the school’s needs.2

Bring classroom experience into the annual and ongoing review. Are staff losing lesson time because access decisions are unclear? Do pupils know how to raise concerns? Are the needs of different ages and vulnerabilities reflected in the arrangement? The answer may require a procedural change rather than new equipment. A practical school-level account can explain both the protection and the limitations, avoiding the false reassurance that no harmful content can ever be encountered.

04 / Treat AI access as part of the same system

Treat AI access as part of the same system

Generative AI can introduce routes to content and interaction that a school’s older assumptions did not consider. The standards’ update history explicitly records changes about AI safety and risk. Leaders should review the actual uses permitted in their setting and the safeguarding implications, rather than assume an AI interface behaves like a conventional search page.1

This does not require an indiscriminate ban or a rushed expansion. Establish who may use the tools, for what purpose and with what supervision or safeguards. Keep staff and pupil use distinct where their risks differ. Check whether the school’s technical protection, reporting and response cover the permitted use. Where an activity has not been assessed, do not describe it as safe merely because access is possible. The school’s permission should follow its understanding of the activity, not the other way round.

05 / Join cyber continuity with safeguarding continuity

Join cyber continuity with safeguarding continuity

A cyber incident can interrupt access to attendance, contact or safeguarding information as well as lessons. The school’s incident planning should consider how critical processes continue when systems are unavailable. The cyber standard is the technical reference point; leadership needs an operational account of the consequences and recovery priorities.3

Ask which information and communication routes must remain available, who holds the relevant authority and how access is protected during disruption. Avoid creating unsecured copies of sensitive records as an improvised continuity measure. The data protection, safeguarding and technical leads should agree the appropriate approach. Recovery is not complete merely because devices reconnect. Staff must know whether important information is available, accurate and usable before normal processes resume. A joined-up plan reduces the risk that technical recovery overlooks the work of protecting children.

Include the people who cover the response outside the usual pattern. A trip, an extended school activity or staff absence may change who receives a concern. Confirm which arrangements apply and how the responsible adult gets help. The test should reflect permitted activity rather than an idealised office-hour scenario. Where the school cannot provide the expected response, decide whether the activity or access needs to change until the gap is resolved. Document the practical decision and communicate it to those affected.

06 / Give governors evidence of a working handoff

Give governors evidence of a working handoff

The governing report should state when the arrangement was reviewed, which settings were tested, the significant limitations and the actions underway. It should avoid unnecessary personal information from monitoring reports. Governors need enough detail to challenge whether responsibilities and response times are credible, not access to every alert.

Before half term, carry out one pathway test and one review of actual permitted AI or off-site use. Agree the repair with the greatest safeguarding significance and check its completion. Keep the September amendments attached to that work so leaders can explain what prompted it. The practical test is straightforward but demanding: when technology reveals a concern, can the school identify who sees it, who decides what it means and who acts? That is stronger assurance than a green status indicator that nobody can connect to a real response.

Leadership questions

Questions that turn the development into a governing conversation.

What we are monitoring next

Publication is the beginning of the watch.

• Further standards changes, actual pathway test outcomes and whether cyber recovery plans preserve safeguarding continuity.

Continue the evidence trail

How this develops our earlier coverage

• September: the school photograph as a safeguarding asset ↗