Why September safeguarding INSETs must become climate-literate, even if Department for Education guidance has failed to catch up
Resource for DSLs: I have produced a short climate-literate safeguarding INSET resource, including an editable slide deck and accompanying guidance, which DSLs can adapt for September training. It is designed to sit *inside* the statutory KCSIE update, not replace it.
[Download the climate-literate safeguarding INSET resource here.]
Designated Safeguarding Leads across England will spend the summer doing what they always do: reading, annotating, translating, and preparing the latest Keeping Children Safe in Education (KCSIE) guidance for September INSET. KCSIE 2026 was published on 7 July 2026, for information ahead of coming into force on 1 September 2026. It remains statutory guidance that schools and colleges must have regard to when carrying out their duties to safeguard and promote the welfare of children.
And despite the efforts of many climate-literate education specialists who responded to the KCSIE consultation, climate change remains absent. I wrote at the time about why responding to the KCSIE 2026 consultation felt both exhausting and necessary, particularly because climate literacy was once again missing from the safeguarding frame.
That omission lands in the same week that The Guardian reported pupils and staff struggling in classrooms above 40°C, with accounts of nausea, fainting, headaches, heatstroke, deteriorating attention and behaviour, and learning on the hottest days becoming, in one teacher’s words, “just surviving.”
Climate change is already in the classroom whether KCSIE acknowledges it or not – where children are sitting on the floor with water bottles because the building cannot keep them cool. It is in the playground with little shade and too much tarmac. It is in the decision about whether school is safer than home during a heat-health alert. It is in the pupil whose behaviour changes when the room becomes unbearable. It is in the family whose journey to school is disrupted by flooding. It is in the child with asthma, the young carer, the pupil in temporary accommodation, the student losing sleep because the future feels unmanageable.
The Department for Education (DfE) cannot claim not to know this. Its own review of climate risk to education delivery identified overheating, flooding and water scarcity as three key climate risks likely to affect education. Carbon Brief reported in 2024 that English schools could exceed an indoor “overheating” threshold of 26°C for more than a third of the academic year under 2°C of warming, rising to half the academic year under 4°C of warming. The same analysis reported that schools in the south and east of England, as well as London, are among those at greatest risk of overheating.
KCSIE 2026 talks extensively about mental health, contextual risk, children potentially at greater risk, absence, information sharing, online harms, professional curiosity and whole-school safeguarding. Yet it still fails to name climate change as a foreseeable, context-shaping condition already affecting children’s physical welfare, emotional wellbeing, attendance, safety, learning environments and family circumstances.
Given this context, the omission cannot be treated as neutral. In my view, it amounts to a dereliction of duty: not because KCSIE should turn every climate impact into a child protection category, but because it fails to name a foreseeable context already shaping children’s welfare. I have made this argument before in relation to KCSIE’s failure of foresight: safeguarding guidance cannot claim to be future-facing while ignoring one of the clearest foreseeable risks affecting children’s lives.
The problem is not that KCSIE fails to create a new category. The problem is that it fails to name the context.
To be clear, I am not arguing that “climate change” should become a crude new safeguarding label. A heatwave is not automatically a safeguarding concern. A flood is not automatically a safeguarding concern. A drought warning is not automatically a safeguarding concern. A pupil expressing climate worry is not automatically a safeguarding concern.
But any of these can become relevant to safeguarding when they affect a child’s welfare, visibility, attendance, behaviour, safety, access to learning, home circumstances or mental and physical health. That is the point KCSIE misses.
Climate risks are not always safeguarding concerns in themselves. They are safeguarding amplifiers. They can intensify existing vulnerabilities or make hidden ones more visible: housing insecurity, domestic stress, poverty, food and water insecurity, transport barriers, medical vulnerability, SEND-related needs, sensory distress, caring responsibilities, absence from education, poor mental health, social isolation, exposure to misinformation, and unequal access to safe outdoor space.
This matters because climate risk does not fall evenly. A shaded, well-ventilated classroom is not the same as a top-floor room in a heatwave. A cool, supervised home is not the same as an overheated flat. A family with flexible work, transport and savings is not in the same position as a family already managing insecure housing, caring responsibilities or disrupted access to school. Children’s access to nature and safe outdoor space is also unequal, intersecting with wellbeing, disability, income, ethnicity, place and school provision.
This is the distinction I have been trying to build across my recent work on climate literacy as safeguarding: climate change does not need to become a crude new label for concern, but it does need to be recognised as part of the context in which professional responsibility is exercised.
KCSIE 2026 already recognises that safeguarding issues are rarely standalone events and that multiple issues often overlap. It also recognises that children can be at risk inside and outside school, inside and outside the home, and online. That is exactly why the omission of climate change is so glaring.
Climate change is not just a curriculum issue. It is increasingly part of the context in which safeguarding judgements are made.
So what can Designated Safeguarding Leads (DSLs) do now?
The DfE has failed to name climate change in KCSIE 2026. DSLs, however, do not have to wait for perfect guidance before acting with professional curiosity, proportion and care. The task is not to create a new safeguarding category called “climate change”. It is to make existing safeguarding practice climate-literate.
That means helping staff apply the safeguarding habits they already need for September:
- notice context
- recognise vulnerability
- act early
- record clearly
- share information where needed
- speak to the DSL when concerned
- avoid leaving children to carry risk, distress or responsibility alone
KCSIE 2026 already gives DSLs the framework for this. It states that safeguarding and promoting welfare includes preventing impairment of children’s mental and physical health or development, providing help and support as soon as problems emerge, ensuring children grow up in circumstances consistent with safe and effective care, and taking action to enable all children to have the best outcomes. It also states that all staff have a responsibility to provide a safe environment in which children can learn.
Climate-literate safeguarding simply asks: what happens when climate-related conditions affect that environment?
Making September safeguarding training climate-literate
This does not need to become another full INSET session. In fact, it probably should not.
September safeguarding updates are already crowded. DSLs need to get staff up to speed on the actual KCSIE 2026 changes: reporting routes, mental health, online safety, absence, children at greater risk, information sharing, low-level concerns, child-on-child abuse and local procedures. Climate-literate safeguarding should not compete with that. It should sit inside it.
A DSL might introduce it simply:
“This section does not replace our KCSIE update. It helps us apply KCSIE principles to climate-shaped contexts: heat, flooding, water disruption, poor air quality, climate distress and misinformation. These are not new referral categories, but they may affect welfare, attendance, behaviour, health and learning.”
KCSIE already gives DSLs the route in. It tells staff to act on concerns, speak to the DSL, record clearly, share information where necessary, recognise mental and physical health concerns, and understand that children’s experiences are shaped by overlapping contexts inside and outside school, home and online. Climate-literate safeguarding asks staff to apply those same habits when environmental conditions are part of the picture.
In practice, that means staff need more than a list of hazards. They need to rehearse judgement. A useful September update might therefore include a small number of short scenarios. For example, take heat.
It is the third day of a heat-health alert. Several classrooms are uncomfortably hot. A pupil with asthma becomes flushed, irritable and refuses to continue working. Another pupil says they feel sick. Senior leaders are considering early closure. Some pupils live in overcrowded flats, temporary accommodation, or homes where no adult will be present during the afternoon.
The safeguarding question is not simply: Should school close?
It is sharper than that.
Which pupils are more vulnerable in these conditions? Which rooms are unsafe? Which pupils might be safer in school than at home? Which children rely on school for water, food, supervision, routine or trusted adults? Is behaviour being interpreted without considering heat stress? What needs recording? What needs reviewing before the next heat-health alert?
UKHSA guidance is clear that children can be at risk in hot weather because of their physiology, behaviours and activity levels, and that heat stress may present as discomfort or irritability, while heat exhaustion may include tiredness, dizziness, headache, nausea, vomiting and excessive sweating. DfE materials also acknowledge that schools can often help protect children during hot weather through monitoring, hydration and adjustments, and that children may not be cooler at home.
That is exactly the kind of contextual judgement staff need to practise. I have written elsewhere that “we coped then” is not a safeguarding standard: memories of past summers cannot substitute for risk assessment in a changed climate.
The same logic applies to flooding.
A pupil who is usually punctual misses three days after local flooding, then arrives late wearing damp shoes and without PE kit. They become upset when asked about homework. A parent has not replied to messages.
A non-climate-literate response might see lateness, missing equipment and poor homework.
A climate-literate safeguarding response asks what might have happened around the child. Has their home been affected? Has transport changed? Has the family been displaced? Have belongings been lost? Is there embarrassment, stress or trauma? Is this absence a compliance issue, or a clue?
KCSIE already treats persistent or repeated absence as a possible warning sign for wider safeguarding issues. DfE has separately identified flooding as one of the key climate risks likely to affect education delivery. DSLs do not need KCSIE to use the word “flooding” to know that a sudden change in attendance after a flood deserves curiosity rather than assumption.
Water scarcity raises another set of questions.
During a period of drought and water restrictions, a school experiences intermittent water supply problems. Some toilets are closed for parts of the day. Pupils are told to “go at break” and bring extra water. A pupil with a medical condition begins avoiding drinking so they do not need the toilet. Another pupil who menstruates asks to go home.
At that point, this is not merely an estates inconvenience. It is about hydration, toilets, hygiene, dignity, medical needs, food preparation, cleaning, intimate care and safe operation. DfE has already identified water scarcity as a climate risk likely to affect education delivery, and the Environment Agency is already publishing 2026 drought and dry-weather reports for England.
A DSL does not need staff to become water-resource experts. They need staff to ask: who is most affected when routines around water and toilets break down? Pupils with medical needs? Younger children? Disabled pupils? Pupils needing intimate care? Pupils who menstruate? Pupils with anxiety around toilets? Pupils whose families cannot easily provide extra supplies?
Then there is emotional context.
A pupil tells a form tutor they feel guilty every time they use electricity or eat meat. They say adults have ruined everything and it is now up to young people to fix it. They stop attending eco-club because it makes everything worse. Their parent says they are not sleeping well.
Climate worry is not automatically a safeguarding concern. It can be rational, values-driven and proportionate. But if worry affects sleep, attendance, concentration, self-care, social participation or safety, staff should use the pastoral and safeguarding routes they already know. KCSIE is clear that mental health problems can, in some cases, develop into safeguarding concerns, and that education staff are well placed to observe changes in behaviour while not attempting to diagnose.
The staff response here is not to debate the pupil’s climate facts. Nor is it to offer false reassurance or catastrophise further. It is to listen, validate, reduce misplaced personal burden, and know when to involve pastoral support or the DSL.
A useful staff phrase might be: “You are not responsible for solving this on your own.”
That is climate-literate safeguarding in one sentence. This has been central to my thinking since writing about climate-anxious young people in 2021: climate education can support agency, but only if it avoids loading systemic responsibility onto children with limited power.
Finally, DSLs may want to include online climate misinformation and fatalism. KCSIE 2026 already names misinformation, disinformation, fake news and conspiracy theories within online safety risks. Climate-related online content can push pupils towards denial, fatalism, anger, despair or disengagement. Staff do not need to police pupils’ opinions, but they should notice when online content appears to be affecting welfare, behaviour, peer relationships, attendance or learning. This is also why climate literacy belongs across curriculum, digital literacy and safeguarding conversations rather than being treated only as science or geography content.
These scenarios are deliberately practical. They are not designed to turn staff into climate experts. They are designed to help staff rehearse the same safeguarding habits KCSIE already requires: noticing context, recognising vulnerability, recording clearly, sharing information when needed, and speaking to the DSL when concerned.
This also needs to connect to each school’s Climate Action Plan. If climate-related risks are affecting welfare, attendance, health, learning environments and access to nature, then adaptation and resilience cannot sit in a separate sustainability document while safeguarding training sits elsewhere. The point is not to load more responsibility onto DSLs, but to connect DSLs, Sustainability Leads, estates teams, attendance leads, SENDCos, pastoral staff and senior leaders around the same reality.
I have written before about what this can look like in practice, including work with schools using Climate Action Plans to review safeguarding policies through a climate lens. The strongest examples are not about creating more paperwork; they are about making existing responsibilities visible, joined-up and proportionate.
For DSLs preparing September INSET: the scenarios above plus others are available as an editable slide deck and guidance note here.
Scenario 1: "School is hot but home may be hotter"
Scenario 2: "Attendance drops after local flooding"
Scenario 3: "The toilets are closed again"
Scenario 4: "I can't stop thinking about it"
Scenario 5: "They saw it online"
Scenario 6: "The school is open, but the community is disrupted"
Scenario 7: "There's smoke in the air"
The practical staff model can remain very simple:
- Notice the context.
- Respond proportionately.
- Record factually.
- Refer if concerned.
- Review patterns.
That is KCSIE applied with context, and not an extra burden.
Climate-literate safeguarding does not ask staff to become climate scientists. It asks staff to recognise that heat, flooding, water disruption, poor air quality, climate distress and misinformation may form part of the safeguarding picture for some children, some of the time.
And when staff are unsure, the route remains the same as ever: speak to the DSL. But if climate change is now shaping the conditions in which children learn, then DSLs need to be climate-literate too.
The guidance may not name climate change. A climate-literate DSL can still notice when climate is changing the safeguarding context.
Download the resource: I have prepared an editable climate-literate safeguarding INSET resource, including scenario slides and guidance for DSLs, to help schools add this lens without replacing their statutory KCSIE update.
Download here.
