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Online safety: requirements and guidance

Understand what arrangements you should have in place to keep pupils safe online, including appropriate filtering and monitoring systems. Get further resources to help you manage online safety in your school.

Updated
on 21 October 2026See updates
School types: All•School phases: All•Ref: 13530
Contents
  1. Develop policies that cover online safety
  2. Put in place appropriate filtering and monitoring systems
  3. Take action to prevent online child-on-child abuse 
  4. Teach online safety through the curriculum
  5. Include online safety in staff safeguarding training
  6. Understand Ofsted's expectations

Develop policies that cover online safety

You should include your approach to online safety in your statutory child protection policy

This is explained in paragraph 169 of Keeping Children Safe in Education (KCSIE). 

Online safety is a key part of safeguarding, which includes 'protecting children from maltreatment, whether that is within or outside the home, including online'.

This is explained in paragraph 3 of KCSIE.

Consider the 4 areas of online safety risk when developing your policy:

KCSIE 2026 now includes generative AI when talking about the 4 areas of risk, under 'contact' (as above) and 'conduct' (making, sending and receiving explicit images – including AI-generated ones – is given as an example). See

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