The Essential Learnings You'll Gain from a Safeguarding Audit: What every school and trust should know

This blog is based on Judicium’s The Essential Learnings You'll Gain from a Safeguarding Audit: What every school and trust should know ‘Sofa Session’ from the 14th May 2025, with our resident expert Joanne Bocko. In this session we looked at the six most common safeguarding weaknesses found in over 100 school audits, as well as practical tips to improve risk assessments, record keeping, and pupil voice, and how to support governors and DSLs to strengthen compliance and culture.

Introduction

In this week’s session, we took a step back from individual policies or the latest safeguarding updates to do something a little different: we reflected on the bigger picture.

Poll 1

Our team of safeguarding consultants conduct hundreds of audits annually; at the start of this academic year, we took a sample of 100 audits from the last calendar year to see if we could find any trends or learning that all settings might benefit from. From this, we’ve drawn out some powerful trends, which we believe can help everyone to reflect on what is working—and what needs a little extra attention. 

Poll 2 

📊 The Results from 100 Audits...

• Risk Assessments – 49%(TBC)
• Record Keeping – 42%(TBC)
• Staff & Student Voice – 39%(TBC)
• Governance – 39%(TBC)
• Safer Recruitment / SCR – 38%(TBC)
• Policy & Procedure – 32%(TBC)

Let’s dive into each of these and explore what the data revealed…

Risk Assessment: Missed and Misunderstood 

For this response, we found two key areas that often fall short: Prevent and part-time timetables.

Over half of schools lacked a Prevent risk assessment—a legal requirement under Keeping Children Safe in Education (KCSIE). This assessment helps identify local risks and reduces environments where extremism can thrive. Start with the DfE’s pro forma and consult your local Prevent Officer if needed.

Part-Time Timetables: 33% of schools didn’t have adequate safeguarding risk assessments for pupils on reduced timetables. These should cover:

Record Keeping: The Foundation of Safeguarding 

Poll 3

Record keeping is the backbone of safeguarding—it tells the story and allows schools to show they acted appropriately. Schools do great work but often can’t evidence this due to lack of detail within record keeping. 

Ask yourself: If a new team took over, could they understand the case from the records alone?

Staff & Student Voice: A Missed Opportunity

Tip: Use anonymous surveys and focus groups to gather honest feedback. For training, aim for short, regular refreshers (e.g. 15 minutes weekly).

Governance: Strengthening Strategic Oversight

Governors were often too reliant on leadership narratives, with limited understanding of safeguarding responsibilities.

Tip: Governors should triangulate evidence (e.g. speak to pupils, review anonymised records, or track actions from safeguarding meetings).

For our Judicium clients, we provide a pro forma specifically designed for this purpose. It enables the safeguarding team to review each other's records against the expectations set out in KCSIE, and to present those findings as evidence to the governing body.

Single Central Record: Gaps in SCR 

Poll 4

Tip: Provide training to those managing the SCR, implement regular spot checks, and consider an annual external review. 

Judicium offers a CPD accredited course, 'Understanding the Single Central Record'. This session simplifies the Single Central Record outlining mandatory and optional requirements for each role, and provides practical guidance to your SCR is always inspection ready and compliant.

We have a variety of scheduled courses held throughout the school year, which anyone can join, subject to attendee numbers. Additionally, we have courses ready to be delivered exclusively to your school/academy, which can be delivered on days and times which suit you. Find out more information regarding our training course here.

Policies and Procedures: Outdated or Incomplete

Tip: Develop a safeguarding calendar to schedule regular policy reviews and training updates—not just in September.

We Can Support Your School with Your Safeguarding Audits!

Need support with your audits? Our safeguarding audit involves a full day visit to your school to review your safeguarding culture and provide valuable advice and guidance on how to make improvements, whilst also capturing areas of good practice. Our audits provide comprehensive overview of safeguarding, covering leadership responsibilities, policies, training, record-keeping, site safety, child-on-child abuse, safer recruitment, Single Central Record, and fostering a strong safeguarding culture.

To find out further information regarding our Safeguarding Audits click here.

Final Thoughts

We hope this has been helpful in reflecting on your school’s safeguarding strengths and priorities.

How Judicium Education can help...

If this raises questions for your setting, you’re not alone. Our full Judicium Safeguarding Service includes an annual audit, SCR review, policy updates, and access to training resources. Let us help you stay compliant and confident.

Judicium Education’s Safeguarding Service is intended to assist schools in meeting the statutory requirements and guidance for schools and colleges on safeguarding children and safer recruitment. For more information, please visit here.

 If you require any support in any of these steps or would like to talk to someone surrounding some support for your school, please do not hesitate to call us on 0345 548 7000 or email enquiries@Judicium.com

 Additional Information

To view all upcoming Safeguarding courses, dates and links click HERE. 

To view all upcoming HR courses, dates and links click HERE. 

Safeguarding eLearning Courses

Judicium Education’s Safeguarding Service is intended to assist schools in meeting the statutory requirements and guidance for schools and colleges on safeguarding children and safer recruitment. For more information, please visit here.

You can follow us on Twitter: @JudiciumSG       @JudiciumEDU

If you’d like to review Judicium’s forthcoming sofa sessions please click here

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