Governance assurance · Safeguarding
Safeguarding Challenge Question Bank
Questions for the DSL and school leaders. A bank to pick from, not a checklist to work through: choose a small number relevant to your focus or a current risk. You are seeking assurance, not investigating cases, so never ask for identifiable details about individual children. Issued by the School Governance Assurance Framework as part of the free Beyond the Certificate resource pack.
Recording, reporting and responding to concerns
Start where the system starts: the first concern.
- When a member of staff has a concern, what exactly do they do, and how quickly?
- How do you know staff feel confident to report? What does your last audit or staff survey tell you?
- How are concerns recorded, and who reviews the patterns over time?
- When a concern does not meet the threshold for referral, how is that child still supported?
- Without names, has anything recently tested your systems, and what did you learn from it?
Thresholds and multi-agency working
Test how the school works when the answer sits beyond its own front door.
- How confident are you in applying the local thresholds for referral to children's social care?
- What is your experience of working with children's social care and the other safeguarding partners? What works well, and what is frustrating?
- How do you escalate when you do not agree with a decision made by another agency?
- What does "early help" look like in this school in practice?
Online safety, filtering and monitoring
- What are our filtering and monitoring arrangements, and who checks they are actually working?
- When did we last test the filtering, and what did we find?
- Who is the named governor and the named leader responsible for filtering and monitoring oversight?
- What are the main online risks for our pupils right now, and how are we responding?
- How is online safety taught, and how do we know it is landing with pupils?
Single Central Record and safer recruitment
The questions behind the spreadsheet.
- When was the Single Central Record (SCR) last checked by someone other than the person who maintains it?
- Are all required checks in place for staff, volunteers, governors and contractors?
- Does at least one person on every recruitment panel hold current safer recruitment training?
- How are we assured about checks on supply staff and third-party providers?
Culture, pupil and staff voice
Test what it feels like, not what the policy says.
- How do we know pupils feel safe, and know who to talk to?
- What does pupil voice tell us about safeguarding, and how recent is it?
- How do staff raise concerns about other adults (low-level concerns and whistleblowing)? Has anyone, and what happened?
- Would a brand-new member of staff know what to do on their first day?
Vulnerable groups and emerging risks
Where vulnerability concentrates, and what is changing.
- Which groups of children are most vulnerable in our community, and how are we responding?
- What local risks affect our pupils: canals, railway lines, county lines, new housing or online harms?
- How do we safeguard children with SEND, children missing education and those at risk of exclusion?
- What has changed in safeguarding this year, and how have we responded?
Looking ahead
One question for the horizon.
- KCSIE 2026 is expected to come into force in September 2026. Have we looked at what is coming and what it might mean for us?
Record what you asked and the response in your visit record or in the minutes. That is what turns a question into assurance.
Questions asked by
Date
Recorded in the minutes or visit record
