Keeping Children Safe in Education (KCSIE): September 2026 changes

KCSIE has been published for the 2026/27 academic year. Understand the changes and what your next steps should be.

Updated
on 9 July 2026
See updates
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Contents
  1. Part 1: safeguarding information for all staff
  2. Part 2: the management of safeguarding 
  3. Part 3: safer recruitment
  4. Part 4: safeguarding concerns or allegations made about staff, including supply teachers, trainee teachers, volunteers and contractors
  5. Part 5: child-on-child sexual harassment and sexual violence
  6. Annex A: further information
  7. Annex B: role of the designated safeguarding lead 
  8. Annex C: KCSIE 2026: summary of changes
  9. Next steps 

The Department for Education (DfE) has published its final version of Keeping Children Safe in Education (KCSIE) for September 2026. It comes into force on 1 September 2026

Please note: this article only summarises the main changes between KCSIE 2025 and 2026. For a summary of the whole KCSIE 2026 document, see our other article.

There are substantial changes in KCSIE 2026, including new sections and updated terminology throughout. While we've summarised the key changes in this article, it's not exhaustive – we've provided paragraph numbers throughout, so that you can easily navigate to the relevant sections of the guidance to read the details in full. 

Part 1: safeguarding information for all staff

All staff must read part 1 of KCSIE in full

Annex A (the condensed version of part 1 of