Ofsted Safeguarding: How Inspectors Judge ‘Met’ Or ‘Not Met’ In 2026/27

Safeguarding is the one part of an Ofsted inspection that isn’t graded on the five-point scale. Your school either meets the safeguarding standards or it doesn’t, and a ‘not met’ judgement has serious consequences, whatever grades you receive elsewhere.

This guide explains how Ofsted inspectors assess safeguarding under the renewed inspection framework for schools, using the school inspection toolkit and operating guide that apply from September 2026. It covers what inspectors look at, what ‘met’ and ‘not met’ look like in practice, how inspectors gather evidence during the two days, and what happens if safeguarding isn’t met. It also sets out the changes in Keeping children safe in education 2026, which came into force on 1 September 2026 and underpin the standards inspectors use. Ofsted inspects schools in England, so this guide applies to schools and colleges there.

Key takeaways

• Ofsted judges safeguarding as ‘met’ or ‘not met’, separately from the five-point grades for the other evaluation areas.
• The safeguarding standards are built on and comply with the Keeping children safe in education (KCSIE) and Working together to safeguard children.
• Since September 2026, Ofsted has made clear that ‘leaders’ in the safeguarding evaluation area includes governors and trustees.
• Ofsted inspectors check the single central record first thing on day 1 and meet the designated safeguarding lead (DSL) that day.
• A ‘not met’ judgement places the school in a category of concern, and the Department for Education (DfE) is informed.
• KCSIE 2026 removes the condensed Annex A, so every member of staff now reads Part one in full, and removes the ‘supervision exemption’ for volunteers.

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How Ofsted judges safeguarding under the renewed framework

Under the renewed Ofsted inspection framework, every school receives a report card with a grade for each evaluation area on a five-point scale, from exceptional to urgent improvement. Safeguarding is judged differently, as ‘met’ or ‘not met’, because a school either meets its statutory safeguarding duties or it doesn’t.

The school inspection toolkit says the safeguarding evaluation area considers whether:

• the school establishes an open and positive safeguarding culture that puts pupils’ interests first
• leaders and those responsible for governance take an effective, whole-school approach to safeguarding

Ofsted’s safeguarding standards have been developed from the requirements of Keeping children safe in education and Working together to safeguard children. If your school is meeting its legal duties under that statutory guidance, you’re working to the same standards inspectors use during an Ofsted inspection. Keeping children safe in education applies to all schools and colleges in England, and every school leader, governor and staff member should know the parts that apply to them.

What Ofsted inspectors look at

The Ofsted toolkit groups the evidence inspectors gather into five strands. Each one is worth reviewing with your DSL and governors well before an Ofsted inspection, with a focus on how well each part works in practice.

Safeguarding culture and leadership

Ofsted inspectors look at whether school leaders have created a culture in which staff, pupils and parents feel comfortable raising safeguarding concerns about children and young people, and are confident that the school will respond. They also check that pupils know who to go to for support and that the school is sure policies are understood and applied, as well as whether the school works productively with outside agencies and safeguarding partners.

Safeguarding information all staff know and act on

Every member of school staff needs to know, understand and uphold their safeguarding responsibilities, so they need safeguarding and child protection training at induction, with regular updates. Inspectors also check that you have policies and procedures for reporting safeguarding concerns about adults, poor safeguarding practice and whistleblowing.

Management of safeguarding

This strand covers the day-to-day management of safeguarding, including whether the school’s leaders:

• appoint an appropriate senior member of staff as designated safeguarding lead, including to carry out the Prevent duty
• have a designated teacher for children who are looked after or previously looked after
• protect pupils at greater risk of harm, such as those attending alternative provision
• teach pupils how to stay safe and keep others safe, including online
• make sure the school’s information systems protect pupils from online harm
• notify the local authority of private fostering arrangements
• have arrangements to support pupils with medical conditions and a dedicated allergy safety policy

Safer recruitment

Inspectors look at whether the people recruiting staff have had suitable safer recruitment training, understand the checks required for staff, visitors, volunteers and contractors, and carry out risk assessments where needed. The single central record must show that all required pre-appointment and vetting checks have been made, and any records relating to disqualification under the Childcare Act 2006 must be accurate and up to date. If you use alternative provision, you also need written confirmation that safeguarding checks have been carried out on all staff working there.

In academies, the single central record can be held by the trust, as long as the details for each academy can be provided separately.

Child-on-child violence

The toolkit asks whether leaders fulfil their responsibilities in relation to child-on-child violence, and is explicit that this includes bullying, physical abuse (including harm or the threat of harm with a weapon), sexual violence and harassment, and domestic abuse in pupils’ own relationships. Inspectors look at whether staff know the signs that pupils may be at risk of becoming involved in violence and how quickly staff are responding to reports and concerns. They also look at whether the school acts quickly to support everyone involved, and whether there are clear systems for reporting incidents of sexual violence and sexual harassment.

What ‘met’ and ‘not met’ look like

The toolkit sets out the standards side by side. Safeguarding is ‘met’ when all of the ‘met’ standards apply, and is likely to be ‘not met’ when any of the ‘not met’ indicators apply.

Minor safeguarding issues identified during an inspection don’t automatically mean ‘not met’, because the ‘met’ standards allow for a school that has resolved minor issues, or is taking steps to resolve them.

How inspectors gather safeguarding evidence

Safeguarding evidence is gathered throughout an Ofsted inspection, and the inspection team is told to connect it all to judge the school’s safeguarding culture over time. In practice, gathering safeguarding evidence includes:

• checking the single central record, and any disqualification records, as soon as possible at the start of day 1
• meeting the DSL and reviewing a sample of casework on day 1
• reviewing, with the headteacher, any allegations or concerns about adults and the steps the school has taken
• discussing with the chair of governors, or a trustee in an academy, how they manage concerns or allegations about the headteacher
• checking that the school has met its duty to refer to the Disclosure and Barring Service where required
• looking at how the school teaches pupils to keep themselves safe, and talking to pupils about whether they feel safe

On the planning call, Ofsted inspectors also ask about pupils in alternative provision, on part-time timetables or flexi-schooling, so have that information ready. Inspectors add to this evidence by sampling cases, and pupils known to children’s social care are always included where relevant. That means the DSL and other staff need to be ready to talk about the support those pupils receive.

The questions the inspection team asks during these meetings vary from school to school, and governors are often asked about safeguarding too. The safeguarding questions Ofsted is likely to ask are a good starting point for practising with your DSL, deputy DSLs and governors.

How safeguarding links to the other evaluation areas

Safeguarding is assessed on its own under the renewed framework, but the evidence gathered during the inspection often contributes to other evaluation areas too. Attendance is one example: the toolkit treats pupils who don’t attend school as a possible sign of safeguarding concerns, including neglect, abuse or exploitation. Personal development and wellbeing is another, because teaching pupils how to stay safe, including online, sits across the curriculum. The way the headteacher and governors oversee safeguarding also tells inspectors a lot about leadership and governance.

In early years, the welfare requirements in section 3 of the Early Years Foundation Stage framework sit alongside Keeping children safe in education, as the 2026 guidance now makes clear. Since September 2026, inspectors pay particular attention to safe sleeping arrangements and to food that meets children’s individual needs, and the toolkit says a school can’t reach the expected standard for early years without these in place.

What happens if safeguarding is ‘not met’

If inspectors provisionally judge safeguarding as ‘not met’, the school meets the criteria for a category of concern. The lead inspector must speak to Ofsted’s duty desk before the final feedback meeting, and a local authority representative is invited to that meeting in every school where safeguarding is provisionally ‘not met’. Leadership roles are told that the DfE will shortly be informed that the school has been provisionally placed in a category of concern.

For maintained schools and pupil referral units, being placed in a category of concern also leads to a directive academy order. Schools in a category of concern then receive monitoring inspections, which focus on the areas that need to improve before the next inspection.

When an inspection can be suspended

The one exception to this is when safeguarding isn’t met but all the other evaluation areas are provisionally at least at the expected standard, in which case inspectors can consider suspending the inspection. They do this only if they believe leadership can resolve the safeguarding issues within 3 months and there are no significant risks to pupils.

In that case, the school is given a deadline of no more than 3 months and inspectors return to complete the inspection. The school isn’t placed in a category of concern while the inspection is suspended.

Keeping children safe in education 2026: what’s changed for schools

Keeping children safe in education 2026 was published on 7 July 2026 and came into force on 1 September 2026, replacing the 2025 version for all schools and colleges in England. Because Ofsted’s safeguarding standards are built on Keeping children safe in education, these are the changes most worth checking with your DSL and governors before your next inspection, and including in your next round of staff training. The full list is in the summary of changes in Annex C of the guidance.

Every member of staff reads Part one in full

The condensed summary version of Part one (the old Annex A) has been removed, so all staff in schools and colleges now follow the same safeguarding expectations, including those who don’t work directly with children. The DfE has also published a shorter Part one overview for all staff. Governing bodies need to make sure every member of staff has read Part one.

Volunteers and regulated activity

The Crime and Policing Act 2026 removed the ‘supervision exemption’ from regulated activity. Under the updated guidance, any person volunteering in a school or college in a role that involves teaching, training, instructing or supervising children on more than 3 days in a month, or overnight, is now in regulated activity. Check your volunteer records, DBS checks and single central record against the updated safer recruitment section.

Filtering and monitoring

Schools and colleges must now review the effectiveness of their filtering and monitoring at least once every academic year. The guidance says the review should be carried out by the SLT member responsible for filtering and monitoring, with the DSL and IT support, and should check that filtering works on all internet-connected devices in all relevant locations. A record of the checks should be kept.

Mobile phones and generative AI

The guidance adds a new section on mobile phone policy, in line with Ofsted’s September 2026 expectations on mobile phones. It also adds guidance on the safe and effective use of generative AI in education. If you are reviewing your phone policy, agree how pupils use screens for learning at the same time.

If you use AI tools with pupils, it’s worth checking how each one meets the DfE’s generative AI product safety standards. Our AI maths tutor Skye has been built to keep pupils safe, secure and on track. Our highly moderated AI model ensures Skye can only access learning content written, approved and controlled by our academic team of former teachers, and Third Space Learning has its own statutory safeguarding duties under Keeping children safe in education. If a pupil discloses something during a session, our safeguarding team contacts the school’s designated safeguarding lead directly. The full details are on our trust and compliance page.

Other changes to check

• New sections on safeguarding children with medical conditions, young carers, sport, and school premises
• Expectations for robust DSL cover arrangements when the DSL is unavailable
• More detailed guidance on information sharing
• Updated sections on mental health, serious violence, child sexual exploitation and child criminal exploitation, and children who are LGB or gender questioning
• Child-on-child abuse retitled ‘child-on-child abuse (including harassment and violence)’, with more references to misogyny
• Part five substantially rewritten, including that all incidents involving the sharing of nudes or semi-nudes need a safeguarding response
• Updated terminology reflecting Family Help, including a new section on referrals to Family Help
• An updated section on reasonable force, reflecting the new guidance on restrictive intervention
• Links to PSHE Association approved resources for teaching pupils about safeguarding issues

The role of governors and trustees

Since September 2026, the toolkit has made clear that ‘leaders’ in the safeguarding evaluation area includes those responsible for governance. Under the inspection framework, governors and trustees hold the school to account for safeguarding, and Ofsted inspectors will want to see that they understand their legal duties and the guidance behind them.

Keeping children safe in education sets out what governing bodies and proprietors of schools and colleges must do, including making sure the school complies with its safeguarding duties under legislation and that a senior board-level lead takes leadership responsibility for safeguarding arrangements. Governors and trustees should also receive appropriate safeguarding and child protection training at induction, with regular updates, so they can challenge the school’s safeguarding management with confidence.

During an Ofsted inspection, governors are likely to be asked how they oversee safeguarding, how they know policies are working, and how they would handle a concern or allegation about the headteacher. In a trust, inspectors meet the chair of trustees and as many trustees as are available. It helps if governors and trustees can point to the follow-ups from their own safeguarding reviews, such as the actions agreed after the annual filtering and monitoring review or a safeguarding audit, and show what happened as a result.

A safeguarding checklist for school leaders

Ofsted is looking for evidence that your safeguarding works every day, so there’s no need to produce documents specially for the inspection. The same is true of Ofsted inspection preparation more widely, including the documents needed by 8am on day 1.

Safeguarding inspection FAQs