There is a question that sits at the heart of safeguarding in 2026. It is uncomfortable for some, and it does not appear on any checklist or inspection framework. But every honest school leader knows what it is. 

It's not: do we have a policy? Almost every school does. And it's not: have our staff completed the training? Most schools will tick that box, too. 

The real question is harder: if a student disclosed something to the least experienced adult in your building today, would the right thing happen? Every time, without fail, regardless of who happened to be on duty? 

That is the test of safeguarding culture – and the context in which schools are being asked to pass that test has never been more demanding. 

The external pressures 

In 2025, there were  to children's social care in England: the latest data point in a long pattern of high and sustained demand. 

Schools account for around one in five of those referrals – they are not on the periphery of the child protection system, but rather they are at its operational core. 

At the same time,  shows that one in five children and young people aged 8 to 25 has a probable mental health disorder, with the  in 2023 that nearly 40,000 children have waited more than 2 years for mental health support – and 372,000 had their referral closed before they accessed support. 

Schools are bridging a gap between identified need and available support – and this gap is not narrowing. 

Online harms continue to evolve faster than most school systems can track them.  research found that the vast majority of children in the UK experienced harm online in the past year. 

�ճ���� has documented an extraordinary acceleration in AI-generated child sexual abuse material that would have seemed unthinkable even two years ago. 

Moving from compliance to culture

Over the past few years, something meaningful has changed in how UK and international schools talk about safeguarding. 

The conversation has shifted from asking ‘are we compliant?’ to ‘have we built the culture?’. We’ve moved from annual training completion to genuine whole-school responsibility – from simply filing policies to examining whether every adult, in every interaction, is dependably doing the right thing. 

That shift is real, important, and for many schools, still incomplete. The aspiration of a culture-led safeguarding approach is now widely shared, but the infrastructure to deliver it reliably is still catching up. 

That gap – between what school leaders believe about their safeguarding culture, and what is actually happening when the pressure is real and the person in the room is not a safeguarding lead – is the territory that our new report maps. 

What we set out to understand 

Earlier this year, we conducted the most comprehensive safeguarding survey we have ever undertaken, gathering more than 4,500 responses from school professionals across the UK and international schools in more than 50 countries. 

We asked about: 

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• Capacity and consistency 

• �ճ����real cost of the safeguarding lead role 

• Online harms and AI 

• What the sector wants from safeguarding reforms 

Our findings form the 91���� Safeguarding Report 2026, which we've launched during Safeguarding Awareness Week��2026.��

The report provides a picture that's more nuanced, more honest and in some places more uncomfortable than the language schools typically use about themselves. It gives leaders a clearer diagnostic than most currently have. And it evidences where the most important work of 2026 now sits. 

“Safeguarding culture is not what you have built on the best day. It is what holds on the worst day, with the least experienced person, in the most ambiguous situation.” 

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What to expect from our 2026 Safeguarding Report  

�ճ����91���� Safeguarding Report 2026 publishes in two editions: UK and International. 

Both combine survey evidence with the most current research from: 

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• NHS England 

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• The Internet Watch Foundation 

• The NSPCC 

• Leading international frameworks 

The report includes a Safeguarding Confidence Index, a Proactive Safeguarding Culture Framework and a UK Safeguarding Best Practice Charter.

Download the report now to explore our findings.

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