Learn about Safeguarding Software for Schools

What is Safeguard Software?

Safeguarding software comprises digital tools and systems designed to enhance the safety and wellbeing of students within educational settings. These technologies are crafted to complement existing safeguarding policies in schools, streamlining processes and fortifying their efficacy.

Outlined below are six key categories of this technology:

1. Case Management: Also commonly dubbed as a safeguarding recording system, this serves as a centralised information hub and secure repository for safeguarding-related data. It provides structure to school safeguarding policies, facilitating the tracking of incidents, managing investigations, and enabling the pursuit of follow-up actions.
2. Content Monitoring: These systems are designed to monitor student device usage, identifying potential risks or concerns, and facilitating necessary interventions.
3. Content Filtering: Filtering tools enable schools to control access to inappropriate or harmful content.
4. Student Reporting: Safeguarding software in this category empowers students to anonymously report concerns or incidents, as well as share information about their mental health and emotional well-being.
5. Teacher Training: These platforms offer training modules to educate teachers and staff on recognising and addressing potential safeguarding risks. They also serve as management hubs, enabling schools to coordinate and track teachers’ training and continuing professional development (CPD).
6. Security Systems: Encompassing various software and hardware solutions, these systems safeguard computer systems, networks, and data from potential threats, ensuring the integrity and confidentiality of sensitive information.

By leveraging safeguarding software across these categories, educational institutions can enhance their ability to create and maintain safe and supportive environments for students.

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Typical Features and Benefits of Safeguarding Software 

The features and benefits of safeguarding software for schools are dependent on their specialism. Here are some of the most popular safeguard software categories, along with their corresponding features and benefits:

Case Management 

• Report Generation and Customisation: Automatically generate reports for individuals, year groups, or the entire school, tailored to address specific categories of concern. Customise reports to provide comprehensive insights into safeguarding issues
• Auditable Evidence: Maintain a clear and auditable trail of safeguarding concerns, categorizing and timestamping them for easy reference during inspections.
• Concern Categorisation: Efficiently categorise and track issues and concerns with a safeguarding recording system, enhancing searchability and tracking processes.
• Chronological Automation: Track the number and dates of reports and alerts for each student, facilitating the identification of patterns and escalation of risks.
• Information Collation: Collate and analyse information to enable meaningful reflection on incident reporting, aiding in the improvement of safeguarding processes.
• External Agency Collaboration: Share information securely with relevant external agencies, such as social services, to ensure coordinated support for students.
• Automatic Alerts: Receive immediate alerts for safeguarding concerns related to specific students, enabling timely intervention by teachers.
• Record Transfer: Safeguarding recording systems can safely transfer student records to their new school, ensuring continuity of support and understanding of their needs.

teamSOS: “Having an accurate and comprehensive record ensures no issue, however minor, can fall through the gaps. Gathering all the details of all incidents enables professionals to see the whole picture, ensuring that the right actions are taken and a full follow up completed.”

Content Monitoring

• Real-Time Tracking: Track students’ internet activities in real-time to identify potential issues requiring intervention.

• Usage Reports: Generate detailed reports and analytics on internet usage to identify trends, risks, and areas for improvement in safeguarding measures. Insights can also be shared with parents to facilitate discussions surrounding students’ online safety.
• Alerts and Notifications: Receive alerts when attempts to access restricted content or concerning activities are detected.

Smoothwall: “The digital realm has no boundaries, meaning Designated Safeguarding Leads (DSLs) cannot leave any corner untouched. Monitoring systems remove the potential of missing a vital concern: the email never sent; notes in a word file that were later deleted, and so on.”

Filtering

• Content Control: Restrict access to specific websites or content deemed inappropriate or harmful, reducing exposure to cyberbullying, explicit material, or potential threats.
• Keyword and Category Blocking: Block specific keywords, phrases or categories – such as gambling, adult content, violence – to ensure a broad level of student protection.

• Access Customisation: Customise internet filters based on year group or lesson type for streamlined workflows, removing unnecessary delays caused by seeking permission.
• Device Management: Apply filters to the full range of devices used by students, establishing centralised control and efficient management.
• User Accountability: Identify individual users attempting to access inappropriate content to promote responsible web activity.
• Usage Reporting: Generate instant reports on device usage to uncover user trends and statistics for informed decision-making.
• MAT Alignment: Coordinate filtering policies across all schools within a Multi-Academy Trust (MAT) for consistent safeguarding practices.

Securus Software: “Schools must have both a robust filtering solution AND a robust monitoring system in place, a key focus in the latest KCSiE guidance and the Ofsted inspection framework.”

Student Reporting

• Digital Reporting: Digital safeguarding for schools allows learners to report incidents via an app, providing anonymity so that stigma is reduced and reporting encouraged. Making reporting of sensitive issues easier can nurture students to seek help.
• School-wide Incident Reporting: Gather accounts from various students for a fuller picture of concerning events, aiding in effective response and intervention.
• Emotional Wellbeing Monitoring: Allow students to participate in mental health assessments and surveys, providing insights into common areas of concern and enabling targeted interventions.

Smoothwall: “Safeguarding software for schools offers students a direct outreach tool, without having to admit to needing help in person. It removes the fear and hesitation of approaching for help, and offers an intervention tool that allows a vulnerable person to receive aid instantly.”

Teacher Training

• Immediate Resource Access: Provide access to a variety of safeguarding courses tailored to different age groups and specific areas of concern, empowering teachers to enhance their skills and knowledge across a wide spectrum of topics.
• Training Coordination: Centralise management of staff training needs on a single platform, simplifying compliance implementation and monitoring processes.
  

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Common Misconceptions of Safeguarding Software

A further step towards understanding the potential of safeguarding software for schools involves confronting potential misconceptions. After all, you may think the technology “does this”, when really it is designed “for this”. 

Here are the most common misconceptions when it comes to safeguarding systems:

1. “Filtering and Recording = Robust Safeguarding”

Filtering systems can block websites with ease, while safeguarding recording systems provide efficient incident documentation. However, reliance on retrospective action makes for a limited safeguarding policy.

By adding monitoring systems to your school’s safeguarding processes, their ability to pre-empt, or predict, means schools can safeguard against, or in advance of, likely incidents.

Securus Software: “Monitoring systems provide an early warning system. They can detect incidents of concern, providing a truer picture of any background issues a student may be facing, and allowing safeguarding staff to deal with the situation and help change future behaviours.””

Furthermore, digital citizenship education is often supplanted by the immediate short-term offerings of filtering systems, and this can exacerbate existing perceptions towards safeguarding that are limited in scope:

Musah Abdulmumini, IT Administrator: “It is believed that safeguarding software’s primary purpose is to restrict access and limit freedom on the internet. This is true to a degree, but its main purpose should be teaching students how to navigate the digital world safely.”

2. “Safeguarding Processes are for specific individuals”

Often, the buck for recording and managing safeguarding incidents is passed to specific individuals, which poses a limitation in understanding the bigger picture around children and their wider activities within schools, especially regarding the broader issue of Keeping Children Safe in Education.

Furthermore, a reliance on hardworking individuals to deliver a high standard of student care above and beyond their normal workload can lead to burnout and inefficiencies.

Orah: “Modern safeguarding software for schools is specifically designed to relieve the pressure on teachers to safeguard, allowing schools to share the duty of care and create a safe and nurturing school environment.”

3. “Safeguarding is a tick-boxing exercise”

It is human nature to resent additional paperwork or mandatory training requirements, especially when added to an already busy workload. However, uprooting box-ticking perspectives towards safeguarding is exactly how EdTech solutions are designed to help.

Tes Safeguarding: “Safeguarding software should be employed to aid and speed up the recording of all concerns, allowing good safeguarding practice to become a part of our every day. It should never be cumbersome, nor should it be reserved for escalated cases.”

The Impact of Safeguarding Software for Schools

It’s important to have an in-depth understanding of which areas require extra attention or improvement before considering any EdTech solution, as this will provide focus to your market research.

For example, if you’re consistently observing that students are accessing inappropriate content at school, then it would make sense to find a filtering solution. If your students are noticeably reluctant to speak with staff about their wellbeing and safety, you may want software that enables them to do this through a platform, rather than face to face.

This is especially pertinent considering the evolving statutory guidance for schools and colleges, which necessitates mapping the role of your prospective solution to the official safeguarding systems in place at your school. In 2023’s Keeping Children Safe in Education (KCSiE), these include:

• Child Protection Policy
• Behaviour Policy
• Staff Behaviour Policy (sometimes called a Code of Conduct)
• Safeguarding Responses to Absent Children
• The Role of the Designated Safeguarding Lead

So, what are the most common outcomes safeguarding software is designed to deliver and, based on user experience, what is the effectiveness of their impact? This is what we found:

Safeguarding Software: Purchasing Considerations

Training and Support

Technology widely varies, meaning it is important to discern the exact level of training and support your school requires. Knowing the features of the technology is one thing, but this means nothing if you don’t know how to actually implement the solution effectively.

These are the most common types of training and support you can expect from Safeguarding Systems:

Contractual Considerations

An effective procurement strategy will be appropriately budgeted, and recognise the type of pricing model that is best-suited to the needs of its school.

Below are the specific pricing models adopted by safeguarding software for schools, as well as the average and median cost of solutions found on our marketplace:

Product Suitability

An important purchasing consideration is product suitability. After all, it’s important to understand a prospective solution’s relevance to the contextual needs of your school.

On EdTech Impact, providers are asked to provide details on their product’s learner age appropriateness, and whether their solution supports parent access. This is what we found across our marketplace:

Ultimately, effectively mapping your purchasing considerations can limit the potential for hiccups when implementing the safeguarding solution in your school, so be mindful not to overlook this important step. Once the contract is signed, your options are limited.

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The Future of Safeguarding Software

Given the stricter safeguarding requirements outlined in the 2023 KCSiE report, and the continual shift towards a more digitally focused education environment, understanding the forthcoming evolution of safeguarding software for schools is crucial.

In light of this, we consulted our experts to share how they anticipated the transformation of safeguarding EdTech would look over the next few years. Here’s what they had to say:

1. A Greater Emphasis on Digital Citizenship

Smoothwall: “As learning becomes increasingly tech enabled, safeguarding is shifting from something that’s ‘done to you’ into something with involvement from all parties. The school, the parents, and the students themselves will feel like they have more of a voice, meaning we will begin to see lines blurring between who is responsible for wellbeing.

2. The Rise of Monitoring Systems

i) As a preventative tool

teamSOS: “There should be a movement from recording events after the fact to preventative “in the moment” responses, allowing interventions to be faster and more appropriate.”

ii) As a fully moderated service

Smoothwall: “It will be compulsory, or widely recognised, that any monitoring provision must be a fully moderated service, allowing DSLs to shift their focus onto intervention. No longer will they take personal accountability to find the needle in the haystack; instead, they will only be expected to respond to validated alerts, allowing their time to be spent on supporting vulnerable people in need; a vital and transformative evolution.”

3. The Development of Reporting Systems into a Holistic Solution

teamSOS: “We predict an evolution from standalone, single purpose systems to technology that supports a more holistic view of children. This could involve greater integration with management information systems or the broadening of reporting and analytics capabilities.”

4. An Increased Overall Importance in Education

Boardingware: “As student safety and welfare becomes increasingly critical in the eyes of parents and families, more families may make decisions on where to send their children based on how much a school shows that they care.”

5. In Line with the Increasingly Volatile Digital Landscape

Securus Product Suite: “With more intelligent technologies being promoted and new platforms geared towards the younger generation, we have to keep up with the new digital threats that we see emerging. In this ever-changing digital landscape, there will be a greater need to protect children, both online and offline.”

Smoothwall: “With the advent of generative AI, safeguarding technology will have no choice but to evolve to keep up with the rate of increasing threats. For instance, technology firms are vowing to tackle the increasing spread of AI images of child sex abuse after The Internet Watch Foundation recently found 2,978 AI images of children which breached UK law, a heartbreaking statistic. It will be a challenge, but safeguarding tools will have to transform along with wider technological innovation.”