What the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act Means for Safeguarding Leaders
After months of parliamentary debate, amendments and scrutiny, the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill has now received Royal Assent and become law.
This is one of the most significant pieces of education legislation in recent years, with implications for safeguarding, attendance, child wellbeing, governance, online safety, admissions and wider school accountability.
While not every change will take immediate effect, the direction of travel is clear: stronger oversight, greater consistency, improved child visibility, and sharper expectations around early intervention and multi-agency working.
For safeguarding leaders, this is not simply another education reform update. It represents a wider shift in how child protection, attendance, inclusion and wellbeing are expected to work together.
Why this matters for safeguarding leaders
Many of the core safeguarding principles underpinning this legislation will already feel familiar.
Schools are already expected to:
- identify concerns early
- work effectively with other agencies
- respond proportionately to risk
- protect vulnerable children from harm
- maintain strong safeguarding oversight
However, this legislation strengthens the wider framework around those expectations.
For DSLs, senior leaders, trust safeguarding leads, governors and trustees, the key question is not whether safeguarding principles are changing overnight, but whether existing systems remain sufficiently robust, joined-up and strategically focused.
Children not in school – reducing safeguarding blind spots
One of the most significant safeguarding developments within the Act is the stronger focus on children who are not receiving education within the formal school system.
Children who are missing education, persistently absent, educated outside mainstream provision, or otherwise less visible to universal services can face increased safeguarding vulnerability.
The Act strengthens the framework for identifying and tracking children whose education arrangements may place them outside usual oversight.
For safeguarding leaders, this reinforces important questions:
- How confident are we that vulnerable children remain visible?
- Are attendance, safeguarding and inclusion systems sufficiently joined up?
- Are concerns escalated quickly where children become harder to engage?
This is likely to increase expectations around information sharing, professional curiosity and oversight.
Attendance is a safeguarding issue
Attendance has increasingly become recognised as more than an operational or pastoral matter.
For many children, poor attendance can be linked to:
- unmet need
- emotional wellbeing concerns
- family stress
- neglect
- exploitation
- peer harm
- mental health difficulties
- school avoidance linked to unmet SEND needs
This legislation reinforces the expectation that attendance should be understood through a child wellbeing and safeguarding lens, not simply a compliance lens.
Safeguarding leaders should consider whether:
- attendance concerns are routinely triangulated with safeguarding information
- escalation thresholds are clear
- vulnerable pupil oversight is sufficiently robust
- strategic leaders receive meaningful safeguarding-attendance assurance
Improved child visibility and information sharing
A recurring safeguarding challenge across the sector is fragmented information.
Where children move between services, settings or support arrangements, important information can be delayed, missed or inconsistently shared.
The Act supports wider reforms aimed at improving visibility of children and strengthening oversight across services.
For safeguarding professionals, this reinforces the importance of:
- accurate record keeping
- timely information sharing
- robust transfer processes
- leadership oversight of vulnerable cohorts
- strong professional challenge where information is incomplete
Coming up in June 2026: CPD Update
We’ll be exploring the safeguarding implications of the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act and the Crime and Policing Act in our upcoming CPD session on 30 June 2026.
FREE to DSLs who have trained with us!
Click Here to RegisterStronger multi-agency expectations
The wider child wellbeing reforms reinforce the importance of effective partnership working.
Safeguarding rarely sits entirely within school control.
DSLs regularly depend on:
- children’s social care
- early help
- health services
- police
- attendance services
- alternative provision
- SEND teams
This legislation reflects a broader policy expectation that agencies work together more effectively to identify need earlier and reduce drift.
For safeguarding leaders, this is a useful moment to reflect on:
- confidence in local escalation pathways
- professional challenge where thresholds are unclear
- quality of partnership communication
- whether safeguarding concerns are being progressed with sufficient pace
Online safety and mobile phone expectations
The digital safeguarding landscape continues to evolve rapidly.
The Act strengthens the government’s ability to set clearer expectations around children’s digital safety, online access and age-related protections.
It also reinforces the expectation that schools align with national guidance regarding mobile phone use during the school day.
Many schools already have robust arrangements in place, but safeguarding leaders may wish to review whether current approaches remain fit for purpose.
Key questions include:
- are filtering and monitoring arrangements proportionate and effective?
- is online safety education current and responsive?
- do staff understand emerging online harms?
- does policy reflect current safeguarding risk?
Unregistered provision and safeguarding oversight
The legislation also strengthens powers relating to education settings operating outside appropriate regulatory oversight.
For safeguarding leaders, this is particularly relevant where children access:
- alternative provision
- bespoke education packages
- reduced timetables
- off-site arrangements
Visibility, accountability and safeguarding oversight remain critical where education arrangements sit outside the mainstream school environment.
Leadership teams should be confident that safeguarding assurance remains robust wherever children are educated.
Greater strategic accountability
The Act also signals wider accountability reform across the education sector.
For trust safeguarding leaders, governors and trustees, this matters.
As trust-level accountability evolves, safeguarding assurance is likely to face increasing scrutiny not simply at operational level, but strategically.
Boards should expect increasing focus on:
- safeguarding culture
- quality assurance
- leadership oversight
- governance challenge
- assurance evidence
- how effectively risks are identified and managed across the organisation
This is particularly important for multi-academy trusts, where safeguarding leadership often sits across multiple settings.
Immediate questions for safeguarding leaders
This legislation does not require immediate wholesale change.
However, it does create a useful checkpoint.
Safeguarding leaders may wish to ask:
✓ Are attendance, safeguarding and inclusion sufficiently joined up?
✓ Are children at risk of becoming less visible through absence, alternative provision or non-standard education arrangements?
✓ Are information-sharing arrangements timely, accurate and well understood?
✓ Is online safety practice aligned with emerging expectations?
✓ Are governors and trustees receiving meaningful safeguarding assurance?
✓ Do escalation pathways with external agencies feel effective?
✓ Is strategic safeguarding oversight sufficiently robust?
Final thought
The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act is not simply an education reform story.
For safeguarding leaders, it reflects a wider policy shift toward earlier intervention, stronger child visibility, improved partnership working and clearer accountability.
The strongest safeguarding cultures will not be those waiting for every piece of guidance to land. They will be those already asking the right questions.
Continue the conversation
The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act provides a useful opportunity to review how well safeguarding, attendance, inclusion and strategic oversight are working together in practice.
If an external safeguarding review or strategic discussion would be helpful, we’d be pleased to support you.
Additionally, if you would like to explore these changes in more detail, our CPD session on 30 June 2026 will focus on the safeguarding implications of both the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act and the Crime and Policing Act 2026, helping leaders understand what these reforms may mean in practice.
A reminder for DSLs who have previously completed Designated Safeguarding Lead training with us – access to our ongoing CPD sessions is included as part of your training at no additional cost.
If you have not trained with us previously but would like to join the session, or would value external safeguarding review, strategic support or leadership training, we would be pleased to help.
