Key takeaway: schools prepared for this academic year using the guidance published in July. Six changes have been made since then, and now KCSIE 2026 is in force, staff, policies and procedures need to catch up — most of the changes put racism and faith-based prejudice into safeguarding as harm in its own right. Because paragraphs were inserted, numbering has shifted throughout — check any policy or training slide that cites KCSIE by number.
July’s guidance vs. now: What’s changed since schools prepared
Schools spent the summer preparing staff, training and policies against the guidance published in July. Six changes have been made since then, and the version now in force isn’t quite the one most settings might have trained on. Staff need to be fully aware of what changed and confident in what it means for pupils, policies, procedures and the wider school community — not just told that it happened.
- Para 17 — prejudice-based harm is now named as harm. “All staff should recognise that children may experience prejudice-based harm, including racism, faith-based prejudice, and other forms of discrimination.” This moves prejudice-based harm from an inclusion or behaviour issue into a named safeguarding duty every member of staff is expected to act on.
- Para 32 — faith-targeted abuse and a child’s welfare. New wording ties racism and faith-targeted abuse directly to “a child’s welfare, wellbeing and sense of safety.” DSLs need to treat a disclosure of faith-targeted abuse with the same weight as any other safeguarding concern, not as a separate community-relations issue.
- Para 37 — discriminatory behaviour joins the child-on-child abuse list. “Discriminatory behaviour, including racism, faith-targeted abuse, and other prejudice-based incidents” now sits inside the formal definition of child-on-child abuse, alongside bullying, sexual violence and harassment. A child protection and safeguarding policy that only lists the others is now out of date with the guidance.
- Para 119 — an anti-discriminatory culture is now a governance duty. Governing bodies and proprietors must actively “promote an inclusive, anti-discriminatory culture” as part of their safeguarding responsibilities — a board-level duty now, not a diversity statement filed separately under “values.”
- Para 28 — the sexual abuse definition has shifted. Sexual abuse is now defined as “forcing, causing or inciting” a child into sexual activity, aligning with Working Together to Safeguard Children, with two lines added: children are “more likely to know their abuser than not,” and under-13s “can never provide valid consent to sexual activity.” That changes how confidently staff need to escalate a disclosure, not just how they define one.
- Para 386 — EYFS: no barred-list check, no start, no exceptions. In the EYFS safer-recruitment section, a volunteer cannot begin in an EYFS setting until their enhanced DBS with barred list check is back — closing a gap some settings may have been working around informally.
One separate, procedural point: DfE also withdrew its standalone ‘Regulated activity in relation to children: scope’ factsheet from GOV.UK on 1 September, pending an update. That’s unrelated to the six changes above — it’s a different document, and Annex C within KCSIE 2026 is unaffected; more on this in Safer Recruitment below.
The Legislative Update
Part One — no more shortcuts
Annex A is withdrawn. There’s no shortened version of Part One any more, for anyone. Catering staff, site staff, admin teams, trainee teachers, supply staff, volunteers and contractors all read the same document in full as your teaching staff — this isn’t new guidance for some of your workforce, it’s new guidance for all of it. Your DSLs pick up two extra things on top: the new Serious Violence risk assessment expectation, and how local Family Help arrangements work under Working Together to Safeguard Children 2026, built on section 17 of the Children Act 1989.
Part Two — AI is a safeguarding category now, not a footnote
Generative AI gets its own section in Part Two. “Contact” risk now covers AI applications that simulate interacting with a real person. “Conduct” risk names AI-generated explicit images directly. And a harmful image is a harmful image whether it’s a photograph, a deepfake or a “deepnude” — same definition, same recognise-respond-record-escalate process, no separate or lesser process for anything AI-generated. Get your online safety policy and acceptable use agreements checked against this, and against the DfE’s Generative AI: product safety expectations guidance, before term starts.
Part Five — misogyny and discrimination both get named
Part Five is rebuilt around a continuum — harmful sexual behaviour, sexual harassment, sexual violence — in that order, because early intervention on HSB does the most good. Misogyny and misandry are named explicitly in the child-on-child abuse categories for the first time, and — new in the final version — so is discriminatory behaviour, including racism and faith-targeted abuse (para 37). The guidance also says outright what most DSLs already knew: calling it “banter” or “boys being boys” normalises abuse and keeps victims quiet. Annex B makes deputy DSL cover explicit too — if your named DSL is the only person who can pick up a disclosure, that’s a gap in your safeguarding arrangements, not just bad luck on a busy day.
Single-sex spaces and social transition — no wiggle room
From age 8, separate toilets for boys and girls. From 11, no undressing in front of the opposite biological sex. No exceptions for opposite-sex toilets, changing rooms or residential accommodation — a lockable, self-contained space is the alternative on offer, not a workaround to build yourself. Social transition is treated as a significant intervention with real effects on a child’s psychological functioning, not an administrative tweak, and primary schools are told to exercise particular caution. This is a governors’ and trustees’ decision to be briefed on, not one staff member’s call to make alone.
Safer Recruitment — Annex C has teeth
The regulated activity test moved from Annex E to Annex C, and the test itself got harder to dodge. The Crime and Policing Act 2026 removed the supervision exemption in the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006, so a volunteer or work-experience supervisor doing three-plus days in 30, or a single overnight, is in regulated activity — supervised or not. Written references are now mandatory for every appointment, students and volunteers included, and the duty to refer to the DBS now covers volunteers too.
As covered above: the separate scope factsheet is withdrawn pending an update, but Annex C itself hasn’t moved. Work from Annex C, not a cached copy of the old factsheet.
Practical impact on schools & academies — What’s required right now
- Get para 17 in front of every adult in the building this week. Prejudice-based harm is now a named safeguarding duty, not background context — staff need to see the actual wording, not a paraphrase.
- Check your Child Protection and Safeguarding policy actually mentions discrimination. Para 37 adds it to the definition directly — if your policy only lists bullying, HSB and sexual violence, it’s now out of step with the guidance it’s built on.
- Recheck every paragraph number quoted in your policies and training. Six insertions have shifted the numbering throughout the document — a slide that said “see para 150” in July may now be pointing at the wrong paragraph.
- Audit your SCR properly, not just update it. KCSIE 2026 is in force — you want a record you could defend to an inspector today, not just one that’s technically current.
- Re-test every volunteer, work-experience and trainee role against the three-day/30-day rule now, if you haven’t already — supervision no longer takes anyone out of scope.
- Stop accepting a signature as proof. A two-minute comprehension check tells you whether Part One actually landed, not just whether it was opened.
- Update any policy that names the old regulated activity factsheet, so it points to Annex C of KCSIE 2026 while DfE’s replacement is pending.
How FusionHR & SAMpeople can help
Join Abbie Blogg, People Consultant, for our KCSIE 2026 and Right to Work Checks webinar on Tuesday 8 September 2026. We’ll go through exactly what’s changed across all five parts covered here, plus the Right to Work reforms landing on 1 October, and what you need to do about each now the deadlines are here. Register here. For support with policy review, staff training or an SCR audit, get in touch with the team.
Reputable sources & guidance
- Keeping children safe in education (KCSIE 2026) – GOV.UK — https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/keeping-children-safe-in-education–2
- Working together to safeguard children 2026 – GOV.UK — https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/working-together-to-safeguard-children–2
- Crime and Policing Act 2026 – legislation.gov.uk — https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2026/20
- Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006 – legislation.gov.uk — https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2006/47/contents
- Equality Act 2010 – legislation.gov.uk — https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/15/contents
