Working together to safeguard children 2026: key points for school staff
Department for Education statutory guidance for England. Our short summary of what it asks of school staff – read the official document for the full duties.
- Current version
- Working together to safeguard children 2026: statutory guidance, with 2026 statutory framework and summary of changes
- Published
- 18 March 2026
- Applies to
- local authorities; police; health (integrated care boards); schools, colleges and early years settings (as relevant agencies); all practitioners working with children
- Official document
- Working together to safeguard children 2026 (GOV.UK)
Checked against the official page on 2026-10-20: current version, version date. Still to check: What the 2026 summary of changes says (not yet read); Date the 2026 guidance takes effect; Summary bullets against 2026 text.
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Key duties (our plain-English summary)
- Safeguarding is everyone's responsibility; work in a child-centred way and think about the whole family.
- Local safeguarding partners (local authority, integrated care board and police) set the local multi-agency safeguarding arrangements; schools are expected to take part and follow them.
- Share information early and appropriately – data protection law is not a barrier to sharing information to keep a child safe.
- Know your local referral route into children's social care and early help; the DSL normally makes school referrals.
- Children's social care can carry out child in need (section 17) and child protection (section 47) enquiries; schools may be asked to contribute to assessments, conferences and plans.
- Serious child safeguarding incidents are notified by the local authority and may lead to local or national practice reviews.
Recent changes
- 18 March 2026: 2026 statutory guidance, 2026 statutory framework and a summary of changes added (replaces the 2023 version).
- 15 December 2023: Previous major edition (Working Together 2023) published.
Next review: we check for a new version by 20 April 2027. Last checked 20 October 2026.
More: teacher guidance summaries · education glossary (DSL, KCSIE and more)
Not legal advice – always follow your school's policy and the current official document.
The summary is written by Classfern in our own words; no text is copied from the guidance. The document itself is published by the Department for Education under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Classfern is not affiliated with or endorsed by the Department for Education.