Keeping Children Safe in Education (KCSIE) is the statutory guidance that every school in England must follow. While much of it covers safeguarding policy and practice, there’s a significant technology component that directly affects how your school manages its IT. If you’re a school leader, IT manager, or Designated Safeguarding Lead (DSL), here’s what you need to know.

What Is KCSIE?

KCSIE is published by the Department for Education and updated annually. It sets out the legal duties that schools and colleges must follow to safeguard and promote the welfare of children. All staff are expected to read at least Part 1, and school leaders need to be familiar with the whole document.

From an IT perspective, the key sections focus on online safety — specifically, what your school must do to protect pupils from harmful content and to identify concerning behaviour online.

The IT-Specific Requirements

KCSIE is clear: schools must have appropriate filtering and monitoring systems in place. These are two distinct requirements, and it’s important to understand the difference.

Filtering

Filtering is about blocking access to harmful or inappropriate content. Your filtering system should prevent pupils (and staff) from reaching websites and material that could pose a safeguarding risk — things like extremist content, self-harm material, and age-inappropriate sites.

A good filtering solution should:

Block harmful content across all devices on the school network
Apply appropriate policies to different user groups (staff, pupils, guests)
Work on both wired and wireless connections
Be regularly reviewed and updated

Monitoring

Monitoring is about identifying concerning behaviour. Rather than simply blocking content, monitoring tools flag when a pupil searches for or accesses material that might indicate they’re at risk — for example, searches related to self-harm, radicalisation, or exploitation.

A good monitoring solution should:

Provide real-time or near-real-time alerts
Give your DSL clear, actionable reports
Capture enough context to support safeguarding decisions
Cover all school-owned devices, including those used off-site

What DSLs Need from Their IT

Your DSL is at the heart of your school’s safeguarding practice, and they need technology that supports them rather than overwhelms them. Too often, we see schools where the DSL either receives no alerts at all or is buried under hundreds of low-priority notifications.

What your DSL should expect:

Access to a clear dashboard showing flagged incidents, not raw data
Meaningful alerts that are categorised by severity and type
The ability to review context — what was searched, when, and by whom
Regular reporting that can be shared with governors and used in safeguarding audits
Training and support so they understand how to use the tools effectively

If your DSL can’t easily access and interpret their monitoring reports, your system isn’t working as it should.

Common Pitfalls

Over-blocking

It’s tempting to block everything that could possibly be risky, but over-blocking creates its own problems. When educational resources are blocked — a history lesson on extremism, a PSHE resource on healthy relationships — staff lose confidence in the system and start looking for workarounds. That’s worse than a well-calibrated filter.

Under-monitoring

Some schools invest in filtering but neglect monitoring, assuming that blocking harmful content is enough. It isn’t. Monitoring is how you spot the pupil who’s searching for something concerning on a device that’s connected to the school network. Without it, you’re missing a crucial safeguarding layer.

Set and Forget

Filtering and monitoring aren’t one-off installations. They need regular review — at least annually, and ideally termly. New threats emerge, pupil needs change, and your systems need to keep pace.

No DSL Involvement

If your DSL wasn’t involved in choosing or configuring your filtering and monitoring tools, there’s a good chance the setup doesn’t meet their needs. DSLs should be consulted on what categories are filtered, what triggers alerts, and how reports are delivered.

What You Should Do Now

Review your current setup. Do you have both filtering and monitoring in place? Are they separate systems or integrated?
Talk to your DSL. Are they receiving useful alerts? Can they access reports easily?
Check your coverage. Does your filtering and monitoring cover all devices, including those used at home?
Document your approach. KCSIE expects schools to be able to explain their online safety strategy. Make sure yours is written down and reviewed regularly.

Getting It Right

Meeting KCSIE’s IT requirements isn’t just about compliance — it’s about genuinely protecting the children in your care. The right technology, properly configured and actively managed, gives your safeguarding team the tools they need to act quickly when it matters.

You can find more detail on how we support schools with safeguarding technology on our Safeguarding and KCSIE page, and learn about our approach to web filtering and monitoring.

If you’re unsure whether your current setup meets KCSIE’s requirements, we’re happy to take a look and give you an honest assessment.

KCSIE and IT: What Your School Needs to Know