Keeping Children Safe in Education (KCSIE) 2026 came into force on 1 September 2026, and one of its most practical changes is to how schools review their filtering and monitoring. The wording is now much more specific about how often the review happens, who leads it, and what it has to check.
If you’re a head, school business manager, designated safeguarding lead (DSL) or the person who looks after your school’s IT, this post explains what changed, how it fits with the DfE’s filtering and monitoring standards for schools, and gives you a checklist for this year’s review.
This is a summary to help you plan. Always read the guidance itself alongside your own safeguarding policies.
What KCSIE 2026 says about filtering and monitoring
The filtering and monitoring section of KCSIE 2026 is paragraphs 173 to 177 of the guidance. Governing bodies and proprietors should ensure the school has appropriate filtering and monitoring in place, and that a review of their effectiveness is carried out at least once every academic year.
The 2026 version adds detail that wasn’t there before (KCSIE’s own summary of changes in Annex C lists this as updated wording):
- Who leads the review: it should be carried out by the member of the senior leadership team responsible for filtering and monitoring, with the support of the DSL and IT support.
- What it covers: it should include checks that filtering is working appropriately on all internet-connected devices in all relevant locations.
- Evidence: a record should be kept of these checks.
Governors are still expected to make sure leaders and relevant staff understand the provision, manage it effectively and know how to escalate concerns.
It isn’t just the DSL’s job any more
Paragraph 12 of KCSIE 2026 says all staff should receive safeguarding and child protection training at induction that includes online safety, and that this includes “an understanding of the expectations, applicable roles and responsibilities in relation to filtering and monitoring”.
In practice, that means every member of staff should know, at a basic level:
- that the school filters and monitors its devices and network, and why;
- what to do if they see something that should have been blocked, or if a block is getting in the way of teaching;
- how to report a concern that comes up through monitoring.
A short slide in your induction pack and a line in your annual safeguarding update will go a long way.
The DfE filtering and monitoring standards
KCSIE points to the DfE’s filtering and monitoring standards for schools and colleges for the detail. There are four:
- Identify and assign roles and responsibilities to manage your filtering and monitoring systems.
- Review your filtering and monitoring provision at least annually.
- Block harmful and inappropriate content without unreasonably impacting teaching and learning.
- Have effective monitoring strategies that meet the safeguarding needs of your school or college.
The standards also say the review should happen sooner if something changes, for example a safeguarding risk is identified, working practices change, or you introduce new technology, major software updates or network changes.
Who is responsible for what
| Role | Responsibility under the standards |
|---|---|
| Governors / proprietors | Overall strategic responsibility; a named governor responsible for filtering and monitoring |
| Senior leadership team | Procuring systems, documenting decisions on what is blocked or allowed, reviewing effectiveness, overseeing reports |
| DSL | Lead responsibility for safeguarding and online safety; checking reports and acting on concerns |
| IT support (in-house or external) | Technical responsibility: maintaining the systems, providing reports, completing actions after checks or concerns |
If you use an IT support company, it’s worth making sure your contract or service description says who does each of the technical tasks, so nothing falls between two stools.
Mobile devices, apps and generative AI
Two areas are now much more explicit than they used to be.
Devices and apps. The DfE standards apply filtering and monitoring to school-managed devices, including those taken off-site, and to unmanaged devices under a bring-your-own-device scheme. Because filtering may not catch content inside apps, the standards say a technical monitoring system should be applied to devices using mobile or app content. Devices the school doesn’t manage should be on a separate network.
KCSIE 2026 also adds a new section on mobile phone policy (paragraph 170), expecting schools to be mobile phone-free environments by default, which reduces the risk of pupils bypassing school filtering on their own data connection.
Generative AI. The standards ask schools to consider whether their filtering and monitoring solution can handle “real-time, dynamic, personalised and AI-generated content”, and point schools to the DfE’s Generative AI: product safety standards when introducing a specific AI product. The UK Safer Internet Centre’s 2026 update to its appropriate filtering and monitoring definitions says much the same: filtering should prevent access to harmful AI-generated content, and monitoring should keep robust logs of interactions with AI tools.
Your annual review checklist
Use this to plan and record this year’s review:
- Named people: SLT lead, DSL, IT support contact and responsible governor are recorded.
- Review meeting booked for this academic year, with all of the above invited.
- Test every device type and location: classroom PCs, staff laptops, pupil tablets, Wi-Fi in every building, guest/BYOD network, and school devices used at home.
- Check the illegal content lists: confirm your filtering provider blocks child abuse and terrorist content lists (the UK Safer Internet Centre’s appropriate filtering guidance explains what to ask for).
- Apps and encrypted traffic: ask your provider what is and isn’t filtered inside apps and over encrypted connections.
- Generative AI: list the AI tools staff and pupils use, and check how they are filtered, monitored and logged.
- Monitoring alerts: who receives them, how quickly they are reviewed, and how concerns reach the DSL.
- Over-blocking: ask teachers whether filtering is getting in the way of lessons, and record any decisions to allow sites.
- Staff training: filtering and monitoring is covered at induction and in the annual update.
- Write it up: record what was checked, the results and the actions, and share a summary with governors.
The DfE’s free “Plan technology for your school” service also lets schools self-assess against the standards and get recommendations (KCSIE paragraph 176 mentions it).
How we can help
Reviewing filtering and monitoring properly takes time, especially across several sites or a whole trust. Our curriculum IT support team can run the technical checks with you, test every device and network, and give your DSL and governors a clear written record. If you’d like a fresh pair of eyes on your setup, ask us about a free IT audit.