PSHE Brighton has written to headteachers, governors, safeguarding leads and trust leaders asking them to review their policies before the new statutory safeguarding guidance comes into force on 1 September 2026. Our request is straightforward: read the guidance accurately, involve parents properly, and place the welfare of every child before institutional convenience or political fashion.
The publication of Keeping Children Safe in Education 2026 marks an important change in the safeguarding framework within which schools and colleges operate. The guidance is presently provided for information and will come into force on 1 September 2026, replacing the 2025 edition. It applies not only to classroom teachers but to governing bodies, proprietors, senior leaders and staff throughout the institution.
PSHE Brighton has therefore prepared a letter and detailed legal annex for headteachers, chairs of governors, designated safeguarding leads and trust leaders. The purpose is not to tell schools how to conduct a political debate. It is to ensure that governing bodies understand the guidance, preserve its exact terminology and examine whether existing policies and individual arrangements remain consistent with the safeguarding framework that will apply from September.
The words “must” and “should” matter
KCSIE is statutory guidance, not an informal collection of suggestions. It explains that “must” is used where a person is legally required to act, while “should” identifies advice that is to be followed unless there is a good reason not to.
That distinction is fundamental. Schools should neither strengthen the guidance to make it say something it does not say nor weaken its mandatory provisions through vague references to inclusion, discretion or individual circumstances.
Where KCSIE says “should not”, that wording must be reported faithfully. Where it says “must not” or “with no exceptions”, those words must not be softened.
Our letter therefore reproduces the relevant passages directly and distinguishes between legislation, mandatory requirements, statutory expectations, reasonable practical implications and PSHE Brighton’s own recommendations.
Safeguarding the whole child
The starting point of KCSIE remains that safeguarding is everyone’s responsibility and that practitioners should consider, at all times, what is in the child’s best interests. It also warns that no single practitioner can possess a complete picture of a child’s needs and circumstances.
That principle is especially important when a child is questioning his or her gender. The guidance directs schools to consider the full range of the child’s experiences, including mental and physical health, family and peer relationships, bullying, wider social circumstances and neurodiversity. It does not permit a child’s welfare to be reduced to a single declaration, request or administrative category.
Compassion requires careful listening. It also requires professional curiosity, proper assessment and a willingness to consider factors that may not be immediately apparent.
A child may need support without every expressed wish becoming the institution’s final decision. KCSIE states plainly that a decision concerning social transition may not be the same as the child’s wishes. The first question is what is in the best interests of that child and of other affected children.
Parents are safeguarding partners
One of the clearest provisions in the new guidance concerns parents and carers:
“Parents and carers have the leading role in the lives of their children, and this area should be no exception.”
KCSIE says that schools and colleges should engage parents or carers “as a matter of priority” and that their views should “carry great weight and be properly considered”.
This is not a peripheral courtesy. Parents ordinarily possess knowledge of their child’s history, health, behaviour, relationships and development that no individual teacher or pastoral worker can replicate.
The guidance recognises an exception where involving parents would create a greater risk to the child than not involving them. But it describes these as “rare circumstances” and requires the designated safeguarding lead to determine what action is necessary before parents are contacted or a decision is taken.
A disagreement between parents and a child, or between parents and members of staff, is not automatically evidence that the child would be placed at greater risk by parental involvement. Any reliance upon the exception should be based upon an individual safeguarding assessment and properly recorded.
The guidance also makes a sensible distinction between a child privately confiding feelings and asking the school to alter the way in which the institution treats him or her. Where no institutional change is requested, confidentiality need not be broken unless there is a related safeguarding risk. Where changes are requested, the formal decision-making and parental-engagement provisions apply.
Social transition is not a neutral administrative act
KCSIE states that schools and colleges should not initiate action concerning social transition. Individual staff should not adopt changes unless the school or college has made a decision and the child’s parents or carers have been involved as provided in the guidance.
This means that changes involving names, pronouns, uniform, records or institutional treatment should not arise from private agreements between a pupil and an individual member of staff.
The process should be authorised, documented and reviewable.
KCSIE also describes social transition as:
“an active intervention that may have significant effects”
upon the child’s psychological functioning and longer-term outcomes. It acknowledges a lack of good evidence concerning the long-term impact upon young people and says that primary schools should exercise particular caution. Full social transition at primary age is expected to be agreed only very rarely.
This wording matters. Social transition is not presented as a harmless default while careful assessment is portrayed as withholding support. The guidance requires a careful approach precisely because intervention and non-intervention both have consequences.
Nor should school staff present themselves as able to provide clinical advice concerning the risks and benefits of social transition unless they possess the appropriate clinical training.
Privacy, facilities and accurate records
The new guidance is unambiguous concerning sex-separated facilities. Schools must not allow pupils to enter toilets, changing rooms, or boarding or residential accommodation designated for the opposite sex. The wording used is “with no exceptions”.
Where a school has adopted single-sex sport for reasons of safety, pupils must not participate in the activity designated for the opposite sex.
Schools may provide suitable individual facilities where additional privacy is needed, but this should not be achieved by removing or compromising the rights, dignity or safety of other pupils.
KCSIE also states that schools are legally required to record a child’s biological sex accurately wherever sex is recorded. Relevant staff should be aware of the child’s biological sex where that information is needed for safeguarding. A preferred name may be recorded for ordinary use, but it should not obscure the information the institution is legally required to maintain.
These are practical safeguarding matters. They may affect medical assistance, emergency response, intimate care, overnight accommodation, sport, changing arrangements and the transfer of safeguarding information between professionals.
Existing arrangements cannot simply be ignored
Many schools introduced policies or individual arrangements before the present evidence and safeguarding framework had developed. Some of those decisions may have been made in good faith and with the intention of supporting a distressed child.
KCSIE does not demand that every previous arrangement be reversed. It does, however, expect schools and colleges to consider whether decisions made before the new guidance came into force remain appropriate.
That review must be handled carefully. Schools should consider the consequences both of maintaining an arrangement and of changing it. Parents should be involved in accordance with the guidance, the designated safeguarding lead should participate where appropriate, and the reasons for the decision should be recorded.
Children who wish to modify or reverse a previous request must also be supported. No child should feel trapped by an arrangement that no longer reflects his or her wishes or welfare.
What we are asking schools to do
PSHE Brighton is asking governing bodies and trust leaders to take seven practical steps before September:
- Review safeguarding, equality, anti-bullying, confidentiality, parental-engagement and social-transition policies.
- Identify existing individual arrangements and consider whether they remain appropriate.
- Establish a formal and documented process for responding to requests.
- Audit toilets, changing rooms, residential accommodation and sporting arrangements.
- Review records and information-sharing procedures.
- Brief the whole workforce using the actual wording of KCSIE.
- Communicate material policy changes clearly to parents.
These are not hostile demands. They are ordinary expectations of responsible safeguarding governance.
Neither hostility nor evasion
Children questioning their gender must be protected from bullying, humiliation and abuse. They must be listened to seriously and treated with dignity.
That does not require schools to conceal material information from parents without an evidenced safeguarding reason, permit informal interventions by individual staff, maintain inaccurate records or disregard the privacy and safety of other children.
It is possible to be compassionate without being careless. It is possible to support a child without pretending that every requested intervention is neutral. It is possible to protect children from bullying while recognising biological sex, parental responsibility and the rights of the wider school community.
The publication of KCSIE 2026 gives schools an opportunity to restore confidence through clarity, openness and accountable decision-making.
PSHE Brighton’s position remains simple:
Safeguarding first. First do no harm.