Early Years Safeguarding Updates – November 2024

To help you stay on top of industry updates, we have asked our in-house early years expert Rebecca to share with us key take-aways from the latest Safeguarding Updates you need to know:

In addition to regular safeguarding refresher training, it is important that Early Years practitioners ensure they keep up to date with safeguarding and child protection issues on an ongoing basis. This may be through accessing newsletters and reports from their Local Safeguarding Partnership, reading about recent safeguarding practice reviews, including the annual report issued by the national Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel; signing up to updates from safeguarding organisations such as the NSPCC’s Caspar newsletter; reading articles, listening to podcasts etc. and receiving email updates from the Government website.

In this article, I have highlighted a few recent changes and updates to support practitioners in keeping their knowledge and awareness up to date.

Keeping Children Safe in Education 2024

The annual update in September featured minor changes:

The definition of ‘safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children’ and ‘Early help’ has been amended to reflect the updated definition in ‘Working together to safeguard children 2023’
‘Indicators of Abuse and neglect’ now states ‘including where they [children] see, hear, or experience its effects’ when referring to domestic violence
Annex C: the role of the designated safeguarding lead has been updated to reflect the description in Working Together to Safeguard children 2023.

Early Years Inspection Handbook

This has been updated to reflect changes made to the Ofsted complaints process and the quality assurance of inspection reports and clarifies that providers should be given opportunities to raise issues, concerns or seek clarification about an inspection.

There will be ongoing updates to the handbook to reflect new childminder category and flexibilities introduced in November, and the EYFS safeguarding changes due September 2025. See the Summary of changes

Data protection

The DfE document Information Sharing Advice for practitioners providing safeguarding services for children, young people, parents and carers was updated in May 2024 to provide greater clarity for all organisations, agencies and practitioners working with children and young people. It makes clear that data protection legislation does not prevent the sharing of information when it is for the purposes of safeguarding children, ‘when it is necessary, proportionate and justified to do so. The first and most important consideration is always whether sharing information is likely to support the safeguarding of a child.’

The Information Commissioner’s Office published a 10-step guide to sharing information to safeguard children to provide guidance on sharing personal information for safeguarding purposes.

All organisations that handle personal data, including Early Years settings must state what data they process, why, and how, via a privacy notice. The ICO have also produced a helpful Privacy Notice Generator Tool to support small organisations to create their privacy notice.

childminder with 5 year old children

General information

The NSPCC have created a new Early Years landing page intended to help practitioners to easily locate Early Years resources and information.

The NSPCC have updated their Talk PANTS resources which support adults to keep children safe from sexual abuse and help children learn how to protect themselves. They have also have added a new parent resource, called Techosaurus, which is aimed at supporting young children who are starting to use technology and the internet, to form healthy online habits, routines and behaviours and build their knowledge and skills around online safety.

Too little, too late is an NSPCC report that explores response to identifying and tackling neglect and The voice of the child: learning from case reviews looks at the importance of listening to children and understanding what they are trying to tell us, including through their behaviour.

The Children at the Table coalition report noted that child cruelty crimes against children aged 5 and under have continued to rise, with more than 9,300 offences reported in 2023.

EYFS Safeguarding changes from September 2025

Earlier this year the EYFS safeguarding consultation was launched with the government publishing its response in October, stating their intention that all proposals in the consultation will be adopted and form part of a revised EYFS from September 2025.

The delay is to give providers/childminders, Local Authorities and training providers time to put the new requirements in place, with the expectation that the new requirements will be adopted before September wherever possible. There have been anecdotal reports that Ofsted are already looking at practice with these changes in mind.

You can read the full response and proposed new wording for the EYFS but I have summarised the key content below.

Suitable people – safer recruitment and references

Safeguarding policies must include procedures to check the suitability of new recruits and record specific information as part of the setting’s safer recruitment processes, including qualifications, identity checks and vetting. This also applies to childminders who are employing assistants
Providers must obtain a reference from the applicant’s current employer (or training provider) before employment commences
References should be provided by employers in a timely manner, confirming whether they are satisfied with their employee’s suitability to work with children and provide the facts regarding any substantiated safeguarding concerns/allegations

Child absence

Providers/Childminders must follow up on absences in a timely manner, including if a child is absent for a prolonged period of time, or absent without notification from the parent or carer. In such cases attempts must be made to contact the child’s parents and/or carers and alternative emergency contacts, with settings holding more than two emergency contact numbers for each child if possible
Providers/Childminders must have an attendance policy that they share with parents/carers, which must include reporting child absences, and the actions they will take if a child is absent without notification or for a prolonged period of time

Male nursery worker playing with boy

Safeguarding policies and procedures

The wording in the EYFS will be changed from ‘lead practitioner’ to ‘designated safeguarding lead’ and relevant paragraphs under safeguarding policies and procedures will be updated for clarification of the DSL role.

Ratios

The statement regarding the inclusion of students on long term placements and volunteers (aged 17 or over) and staff working as apprentices in early education (aged 16 or over) the qualified ratios at the level below their level of study, if deemed competent and responsible has been amended to clarify that they must also hold a valid and current PFA qualification.

In reference to level of study, for ratio purposes:

Level 2 students can only be counted in ratio as unqualified
Full & relevant (as per the Government qualification list) Level 3, 4, 5 & 6 (undergraduate degree) students can be counted as L2 (if they have Level 2 or equivalent English qualification and a PFA certificate)
Students undertaking EYITT (EYT) or QTS accreditation can be counted at Level 3

Food and drink facilities

This wording has been added, following the case of Oliver Steeper and other children who have choked in their childcare setting and sadly died.

Whilst children are eating there should always be a member of staff in the room with a valid paediatric first aid certificate
Before a child is admitted to the setting the provider/Childminder must obtain information about any special dietary requirements, preferences, food allergies and intolerances that the child has, and any special health requirements, which must be shared with all staff involved in the preparing and handling of food.
Providers/childminders must be clear about who is responsible for checking that the food being provided meets all the requirements for each child.
Providers/Childminders must ensure that all staff are aware of the symptoms and treatments for allergies and anaphylaxis, the differences between allergies and intolerances and that children can develop allergies at any time, especially during the introduction of solid foods
Providers/Childminders must have ongoing discussions with parents and/or carers about the stage their child is at in regard to introducing solid foods, including to understand the textures the child is familiar with
Providers/Childminders must prepare food in a suitable way for each child’s individual developmental needs
Babies and young children should be seated safely in a highchair or appropriately sized low chair while eating
Children must always be within sight and hearing of a member of staff whilst eating.
Where possible, staff should sit facing children whilst they eat so they can make sure children are eating in a way to prevent choking and so they can prevent food sharing and be aware of any unexpected allergic reactions.
When a child experiences a choking incident that requires intervention, providers should record details of where and how the child choked and parents and/or carers made aware

toddler playing outdoors

Toilet and intimate hygiene

The consultation responders had mixed views on this subject and the government response reflects the concerns raised. The new wording states that Providers/Childminders ‘must ensure children’s privacy is considered and balanced with safeguarding and support needs when changing nappies and toileting’. In the response it is suggested that in some cases, such as for lone childminders, this may mean meeting the requirement by the adult using themself or a privacy screen to shield a child and maintain their privacy while still ensuring adequate supervision and safety for other children.

Whistleblowing

A new section has been added to strengthen the EYFS references to whistleblowing.

Providers/Childminders must put appropriate whistleblowing procedures in place for staff to raise concerns about poor or unsafe practice in the setting’s safeguarding provision, including when and how to report concerns and the process that will be followed after staff report concerns.
Providers/Childminders must ensure staff are aware of the setting’s whistleblowing procedures and must ensure all staff feel able to raise concerns about poor or unsafe practice and know that such concerns will be taken seriously by the senior leadership team.
Where a staff member feels unable to raise an issue with their employer, or feels that their genuine concerns are not being addressed, other channels are open to them
- E.g. NSPCC whistleblowing helpline; Ofsted; Govt guidance

Safeguarding training: Annex C

Training requirements for staff (including childminder assistants) and designated safeguarding leads (including childminders) will be set out in a new annex, in a similar way to the current annex for paediatric first aid requirements. His training must be renewed every 2 years, plus refresher training in between if needed.

All practitioners including DSLs

The safeguarding training must cover the following areas:

What is meant by the term safeguarding.
The main categories of abuse, harm and neglect.
The factors, situation and actions that could lead or contribute to abuse, harm or neglect.
How to work in ways that safeguard children from abuse, harm and neglect
How to identify signs of possible abuse, harm and neglect at the earliest opportunity. These may include:
- Significant changes in children’s behaviour.
- decline in children’s general well-being.
- Unexplained bruising, marks or signs of possible abuse or neglect.
- Concerning comments or behaviour from children.
- Inappropriate behaviour from [practitioners/childminders and assistants or household members], or any other person working with the children.
- Any reasons to suspect neglect or abuse outside the setting
How to respond, record and effectively refer concerns or allegations related to safeguarding in a timely and appropriate way.
The setting’s safeguarding policy and procedures.
Legislation, national policies, codes of conduct and professional practice in relation to safeguarding.
Roles and responsibilities of [practitioners/childminders and assistants] and other relevant professionals involved in safeguarding.

Training for the DSL must cover

Local child protection procedures and how to liaise with local statutory children’s services agencies and with the local safeguarding partners to safeguard children.
How to refer and escalate concerns
How to manage and monitor allegations of abuse against other staff.
How to ensure internet safety.