PGCE Safeguarding and Child Protection 2 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: KCSIE 2024 introduced strengthened guidance on which area of safeguarding that all schools must address?
- Road safety education
- Filtering and monitoring of online activity, and the importance of online safety as part of the whole school safeguarding approach (Correct answer)
- Nutrition and healthy eating policies
- Financial education for pupils
Correct answer: Filtering and monitoring of online activity, and the importance of online safety as part of the whole school safeguarding approach
KCSIE 2024 places significant emphasis on online safety, including appropriate filtering and monitoring systems, teaching pupils about online risks, and ensuring the whole school approach to safeguarding includes the online environment.
Question 2: A trainee teacher on placement suspects that a colleague is behaving inappropriately towards a pupil. According to safeguarding procedures, what should they do?
- Confront the colleague directly and ask them to stop
- Discuss it with other trainees to get their opinion first
- Report the concern immediately to the headteacher or, if the concern involves the headteacher, to the chair of governors or the Local Authority Designated Officer (LADO) (Correct answer)
- Ignore it as they are only a trainee and it is not their place to report concerns about staff
Correct answer: Report the concern immediately to the headteacher or, if the concern involves the headteacher, to the chair of governors or the Local Authority Designated Officer (LADO)
Allegations against staff must be reported to the headteacher, who will then contact the LADO. If the allegation involves the headteacher, it should go directly to the chair of governors or LADO. All staff, including trainees, have a duty to report — status does not affect this responsibility.
Question 3: What is 'contextual safeguarding' and why is it important?
- Safeguarding that only applies within the school building
- An approach that considers the wider environmental factors and contexts in which young people experience harm, including peer groups, schools, neighbourhoods, and online (Correct answer)
- A type of safeguarding that applies only to children under 5
- A government inspection framework for schools
Correct answer: An approach that considers the wider environmental factors and contexts in which young people experience harm, including peer groups, schools, neighbourhoods, and online
Contextual safeguarding recognises that young people experience harm beyond their families — in peer groups, schools, communities, and online. It requires professionals to assess and respond to these broader contexts rather than focusing solely on family-based risk factors.
Question 4: Which of the following is an example of peer-on-peer abuse that schools must be prepared to address under KCSIE?
- Two pupils having a minor disagreement about a football game
- Sexual harassment, sexual violence, bullying (including cyberbullying), and initiation or hazing-type violence between pupils (Correct answer)
- A pupil helping another pupil with their homework
- Pupils competing against each other in a school sports event
Correct answer: Sexual harassment, sexual violence, bullying (including cyberbullying), and initiation or hazing-type violence between pupils
KCSIE requires schools to address peer-on-peer abuse, which includes sexual violence and harassment, physical abuse, bullying, online abuse, sexting, initiation/hazing, and upskirting. Schools must have clear policies and procedures for preventing, identifying, and responding to these behaviours.
Question 5: What does 'professional curiosity' mean in the context of safeguarding?
- Being nosy about colleagues' personal lives
- An attitude of mind where practitioners actively question, challenge, and seek to understand what is happening in a child's life rather than accepting information at face value (Correct answer)
- Reading gossip about pupils on social media
- Only asking questions during formal safeguarding training sessions
Correct answer: An attitude of mind where practitioners actively question, challenge, and seek to understand what is happening in a child's life rather than accepting information at face value
Professional curiosity means not taking things at face value but questioning, exploring, and triangulating information to build a full picture of a child's circumstances. It involves respectful challenge, critical thinking, and maintaining focus on the child's lived experience.
Question 6: Under KCSIE, what must happen when a member of staff receives a safeguarding disclosure from a child?
- The staff member should ask leading questions to gather as much detail as possible
- The staff member should listen carefully, reassure the child, not promise confidentiality, record the disclosure accurately using the child's own words, and report to the DSL immediately (Correct answer)
- The staff member should tell the child's parents before reporting to the DSL
- The staff member should wait until the end of the school day to make a report
Correct answer: The staff member should listen carefully, reassure the child, not promise confidentiality, record the disclosure accurately using the child's own words, and report to the DSL immediately
When receiving a disclosure, staff should listen without interruption, reassure the child, not promise confidentiality, avoid leading questions, and make a factual written record using the child's own words as soon as possible. The concern must be reported to the DSL immediately — never delayed.
PGCE Safeguarding and Child Protection 2
KCSIE 2024 introduced strengthened guidance on which area of safeguarding that all schools must address?