AI Safeguarding Support for Schools

AI is becoming part of children and young people’s everyday lives, whether through homework tools, chatbots, image generation, social media, online friendships or the wider digital world around them.

For many safeguarding, pastoral and senior teams, this can feel like a fast-moving area. Staff may be aware that AI brings new safeguarding questions, but not feel confident using AI themselves or knowing where to begin.

This support helps schools explore AI in a calm, practical and safeguarding-focused way. You do not need to be an AI expert. The starting point is understanding enough to recognise potential risks, ask helpful questions and respond with confidence when concerns arise.

KCSIE 2026 strengthens the focus on AI, online safety and AI-generated content, including risks linked to nude and semi-nude images, harmful online behaviour, filtering and monitoring, and children’s wider digital experiences.

For schools, this is not just about updating policies. It is about helping staff understand what AI-related safeguarding concerns might look like in practice, how young people may be using these tools, and what teams need to consider when responding.

AI may show up through an AI-generated image, a fake screenshot, harmful advice from a chatbot, a pupil using AI for emotional support, or a staff member being unsure about using AI with pupil information.

These situations can sit across safeguarding, online safety, mental health, behaviour, data protection and staff confidence. This is why teams may need space to explore the issues practically and reflectively.

When a new safeguarding concern emerges, it can be tempting to move quickly into fear, policy updates or “we need to know everything now”.

AI does raise important questions, but schools do not need to respond from panic. A more useful starting point is to pause, notice what is changing, and think carefully about what children and staff may need.

This support creates space for teams to slow the conversation down, build shared understanding and consider what good safeguarding practice looks like when AI is part of the picture.

AI Safeguarding Support helps teams build a shared foundation of understanding.

Sessions can help staff understand what generative AI is in plain English, how children and young people may already be using it, where safeguarding and wellbeing risks may arise, and what staff need to notice, record and report.

The approach is practical, reflective and grounded in real school life. Sessions include discussion, realistic scenarios and prompts to help teams connect the guidance to everyday safeguarding practice.

A practical introduction for DSLs, pastoral teams and school leaders who want to understand the safeguarding implications of AI.

This session can be delivered as a 60–90 minute online session, a longer team development session, or as part of an INSET or safeguarding update day.

The session begins with a gentle introduction to AI and how young people may be using it, before moving into safeguarding risks linked to AI-generated content, online behaviour, vulnerable pupils and staff practice.

We then use realistic school-based scenarios to think through what staff may need to notice, record, share and consider next.

Example scenarios might include a pupil reporting that an AI-generated nude image has been created of them, a young person using an AI chatbot for emotional support, a staff member using AI to help write a report involving pupil information, or a pupil creating fake screenshots or images of another student.

The aim is not to leave teams feeling more worried. It is to help staff feel more informed, more confident and better able to ask the right questions.

This support is designed for schools and education settings beginning to think about AI, online safety and safeguarding in a more joined-up way.

It may be particularly useful for DSLs, deputy DSLs, pastoral and wellbeing teams, senior leaders, online safety leads, PSHE/RSE leads, SENDCOs and inclusion leads.

It may also support teams preparing for KCSIE 2026 updates, September INSET or wider conversations about children’s digital lives.

This work links closely with my September Ready resources and can be used as a follow-up to safeguarding updates, INSET training or wider online safety work.

I can also support schools with reflective discussion, scenario-based training, policy and practice prompts, and team conversations around staff confidence, boundaries and safeguarding decision-making.

If your school or team is beginning to think about AI, online safety and safeguarding, I’d be very happy to have a conversation about what would be most useful.

Please get in touch to discuss a session for your team.