Keeping Children Safe in Education 2026: Essential Reading for Faith Organisations

The Department for Education has launched a consultation on the most significant revision to statutory safeguarding guidance in years. While aimed at schools and colleges, the proposed new content in the draft 2026 guidance contains important lessons and benchmarks that every faith organisation working with children and young people should be carefully considering. 

The draft Keeping Children Safe in Education (KCSIE) 2026 guidance, published for consultation on 12 February 2026, sets out significant new provisions and strengthened expectations around child protection. The final version is due for publication on 1 September 2026.  

Faith schools in England are fully bound by KCSIE as statutory guidance and must ensure their policies, procedures, and training reflect the new requirements when the final version is published in September. But the relevance of these proposals extends well beyond the school gates. For the wider faith community, whose work with children spans worship, youth groups, pastoral care, residential retreats, and community activities, several of the proposed new additions deserve equally careful attention. 

What is Being Proposed for 2026? 

Facilities, changing rooms, and residential accommodation. In one of the most significant new additions to the guidance, schools must not allow pupils access to toilets, changing rooms, or overnight accommodation designated for the opposite biological sex, with no exceptions. Faith schools will need to ensure their policies reflect this requirement clearly and without ambiguity. For the wider faith community running residential retreats, pilgrimages, youth camps, or holiday clubs, this new provision offers a clear and practical benchmark for reviewing your own facilities and accommodation policies, particularly where questions around social transition may arise within your community. 

Gender questioning and social transition. The draft introduces substantial new guidance, informed by the independent Cass Review, on how to respond when a child requests support with social transition. Crucially, it emphasises that parents and carers must be actively involved as a priority in the vast majority of cases, that social transition should be viewed as an active intervention requiring careful consideration rather than a routine accommodation, and that the welfare of the child must come before their stated wishes. For faith schools and faith organisations that may hold strong pastoral or theological views in this area, this new guidance is an important reminder that the child’s safety and wellbeing must always be the primary consideration, and that any pastoral response should involve appropriate professional advice rather than being handled informally within the community. 

Sport and single-sex activity. A completely new section on sport has been introduced, clarifying that schools can separate children by biological sex where physical safety is a concern, with no exceptions where safety is the rationale. Faith schools will need to review their PE and sports policies accordingly. Faith organisations running sporting activities, tournaments, or physical education programmes for children will find this a useful reference point for their own activity policies. 

Mobile phones. A new section formally establishes the expectation that schools should operate as mobile-phone-free environments by default throughout the entire school day. Faith schools will need to ensure their mobile phone policies meet this expectation. While this does not apply directly to wider faith settings, the safeguarding rationale behind it, that unmanaged device use among children creates significant risks, is one that youth groups, holiday clubs, and children’s activities within faith organisations should actively consider when reviewing their own digital policies. 

Generative AI and deepfakes. New guidance has been introduced specifically addressing the use of Generative AI in education, alongside updated language throughout replacing references to “sexting” with “self-generated intimate images and/or videos including those generated using AI e.g. deepfakes.” Faith schools will need to ensure their online safety policies reflect this updated framework. More broadly, faith organisations should ask themselves honestly whether their digital safeguarding policies have kept pace with these developments, particularly given that young people in faith communities are just as exposed to these risks as any other group. 

Young carers. A brand new dedicated section on young carers has been introduced for the first time, recognising that caring responsibilities can significantly impact a child’s attendance, behaviour, and wellbeing. Faith schools, which often have close relationships with families, should ensure staff are trained to identify and support young carers. Faith communities more broadly are frequently well placed to identify young carers who may be struggling, and this new section is a prompt to ensure your organisation knows how to refer these children to appropriate support. 

Safeguarding children with medical conditions. Another entirely new section clarifies that while serious incidents can occur in educational settings, a child having a medical condition is not in itself an indicator of greater safeguarding risk. However, it does emphasise that where a clinical incident occurs, safeguarding considerations must be actively reviewed. Faith schools and faith organisations providing activities or residential experiences for children should ensure they have clear procedures for managing medical needs and knowing when safeguarding duties are triggered. 

Strengthened DSL cover arrangements. The draft proposes new expectations that robust cover arrangements must be in place for when a Designated Safeguarding Lead is unavailable, with the specific suggestion of a confidential shared mailbox to ensure concerns are never missed. Faith schools must ensure these arrangements are in place and documented. For the wider faith community, this is a prompt to consider whether your safeguarding lead arrangements are genuinely resilient, or whether the absence of one individual could leave children without adequate protection. 

Operation Encompass. Following a new statutory duty placed on police in November 2025, the guidance has been substantially updated to reflect the formal requirement for police to notify schools when a child may have been affected by a domestic abuse incident. All faith schools must ensure they are prepared to receive and act on these notifications appropriately. Faith organisations more broadly should consider how they would respond if similar information came to them through pastoral or community relationships, ensuring they have clear referral pathways in place. 

Trainee teachers and supply staff. The draft introduces new specific content on handling safeguarding concerns about trainee teachers and supply staff, reflecting recognition that these groups have not always been consistently covered in practice. Faith schools must ensure their procedures explicitly cover these groups. For the wider faith community, the equivalent question is whether your safeguarding procedures apply equally to all volunteers, visiting speakers, visiting faith leaders, and occasional workers, not just your regular and well-known community members. 

Family Help framework. Throughout the guidance, new terminology and clearer pathways are proposed to distinguish between universal community-based early help and targeted Family Help delivered through statutory services. Faith schools will need to ensure staff understand these updated referral pathways. This updated framework is equally relevant to faith organisations, many of whom provide informal early help to families. Understanding where your support ends and statutory referral begins has never been more important. 

The Broader Calling 

Taken together, the proposals in KCSIE 2026 send a clear message to the entire faith sector: safeguarding expectations are rising, the landscape of risk is evolving rapidly, and all organisations working with children, whether bound by statute or not,must keep pace. For faith schools, compliance with the final guidance will be a legal requirement from September 2026. For the wider faith community, aligning with its principles is a reflection of the profound responsibility that comes with being trusted by families and communities to care for their children. 

The publication of this draft is an ideal moment for all faith organisations, schools and community groups alike, to audit their current safeguarding framework against these new proposals, identify any gaps, and take action well before the final guidance comes into force. 

The consultation is open now. Faith schools should ensure their leadership teams and governing bodies review the draft as a matter of priority. Wider faith organisations are equally encouraged to engage with it and consider whether to submit a response. 

For advice on reviewing your safeguarding framework in light of the proposed KCSIE 2026 changes, or for support with faith-specific safeguarding challenges, please contact our safeguarding team.