Safeguarding glossary for teachers: 40 plain-English terms

Safeguarding has its own vocabulary. In the first week, a new teacher hears designated safeguarding lead (DSL), chronology and disclosure, often with no explanation.

This glossary gives 40 terms in plain English. They sit in six groups: people, core ideas, types of harm, telling and recording, concerns about adults, and online safety.

Many terms come from Keeping children safe in education (KCSIE) 2026, the statutory guidance for schools in England. Many international schools use it as a reference. Your own policy and local law may use different words, so check them.

Schools set up safeguarding roles in different ways, and the titles change from country to country. These six are the ones you will meet first.

Your first job is simple. Know who your DSL and deputies are, and tell one of them about any concern.

• Designated safeguarding lead (DSL): the trained person who leads child protection at your school and decides what happens next with a concern.
• Deputy DSL: a trained second lead who covers when the DSL is away, so a child can always reach someone.
• Head of school or principal: receives concerns about adults and leads the response as case manager. Concerns about the head go to the board chair.
• Safeguarding governor or trustee: a board member who oversees safeguarding and asks the DSL for evidence that it works. Not every school has one.
• Local authority designated officer (LADO): in England, the official who advises schools on concerns about adults. Other countries use other bodies.
• Child protection authority: the local service or police unit that investigates when a child may be at risk. Its name changes by country.

These seven terms come up in almost every policy and training session. The first two are easy to mix up.

Safeguarding covers every child. Child protection covers the smaller number who are suffering serious harm. The full difference has its own guide.

• Safeguarding: all the work of keeping children safe and well, from early support to protection from harm, at home or online.
• Child protection: the part of safeguarding that acts when a child is suffering, or likely to suffer, significant harm.
• Child: anyone under 18. Every decision is made in the child's best interests.
• Significant harm: the serious level of harm that calls for action by the authorities. Your DSL judges whether a concern reaches it.
• Family Help: support for a child and family as soon as a problem appears. Older guidance calls this early help.
• Contextual safeguarding: looking at risks outside the home, such as peer groups, places in the community and online spaces.
• Professional curiosity: staying alert when something does not add up, then telling the DSL instead of assuming someone else has noticed.

Harm rarely fits one label. KCSIE says abuse, neglect and exploitation are seldom standalone events, and several often overlap.

Describe what you saw or heard, and let the DSL work out which label fits.

• Abuse: harm done to a child, or a failure to stop it. The main kinds are physical, emotional and sexual abuse.
• Neglect: a lasting failure to meet a child's basic needs, such as food, clothing, supervision, medical care or emotional care.
• Child-on-child abuse: harm one child causes another, such as bullying, sexual harassment or hazing. It can happen online too.
• Grooming: building trust with a child, and often the family, to prepare the child for abuse.
• Exploitation: using power over a child to get sexual or criminal acts from them, often for gifts or money. The two forms are child sexual exploitation (CSE) and child criminal exploitation (CCE).
• Harmful sexual behaviour (HSB): sexual behaviour by a child that is outside what is expected for their age or that harms another child.
• Domestic abuse: abuse between people in a family or close relationship. Children are harmed when they see, hear or live with it.

This group matters most on the day a child talks to you. If a child is in immediate danger, call your local emergency services first.

Then follow your school's child protection procedure and tell the DSL the same day. Never promise a child that you will keep a secret.

The guide on how to respond when a child discloses abuse shows what to say.

• Concern: anything about a child's safety or welfare that worries you, however small. Write down what you saw or heard.
• Disclosure: when a child tells you, or shows you, that they are being harmed. It may come as a hint, a drawing or a story about a friend.
• Confidentiality: sharing a child's information only with people who need it, such as the DSL. You cannot promise to keep a disclosure secret.
• Referral: a formal report from the school to the child protection authority or police. The DSL decides when to make one.
• Mandatory reporting: a legal duty in some countries to report suspected abuse to the authorities. Laws differ, so ask your DSL what applies to you.
• Chronology: a dated list of events and actions for one child, in order, that shows patterns over time. See how to write a safeguarding chronology.
• Child protection file: the secure, confidential record of concerns, actions and decisions for one child. Only people who need it can open it.

Adults can cause harm, and they can also cross a line without meaning to. Schools use different words for each, because the response is different.

Reporting a colleague feels hard. The rule is the same as for any concern: tell the person your policy names, on the same day.

A low-level concerns policy explains how your school handles the smaller ones.

• Low-level concern: any worry about an adult's conduct, even a nagging doubt, that falls below the harm threshold. Low-level does not mean unimportant.
• Allegation: a claim that an adult may have harmed a child, committed a crime against a child, or is unsuitable to work with children.
• Harm threshold: the line between a low-level concern and an allegation. School leaders decide which side a report falls on.
• Staff code of conduct: the written rules for how adults behave with children, including one-to-one time, messaging and photos.
• Whistleblowing: raising a concern about unsafe practice at the school itself, such as a leader ignoring a report.
• Safer recruitment: hiring steps that screen out people who are unsuitable to work with children, such as reference and background checks.
• Single central record (SCR): the school's register of pre-appointment checks on staff, volunteers and contractors.

Online harm often runs alongside harm in person. KCSIE calls technology a significant part of many safeguarding issues.

If a child shows you something upsetting online, do not forward or copy it. Tell the DSL the same day.

• Online safety: keeping children safe from harm on phones, games, apps and social media, and teaching them to use these well.
• The four Cs: content, contact, conduct and commerce, the four areas of online risk that KCSIE names.
• Filtering and monitoring: school systems that block harmful content and flag risky searches or messages on school networks and devices.
• Nudes and semi-nudes: naked or partly naked images that children make or share, including AI-generated ones. Never forward the image.
• Sextortion: blackmailing a child, often with real or fake nude images, to get money or more images.
• Cyberbullying: bullying by message, post, game chat or group chat, which can follow a child home.

Add it to induction, and put it in the staffroom. In week one, ask each new teacher to find the names of the DSL and the deputies.

A glossary does not replace action. If you are worried about a child, follow your school's child protection procedure and tell the DSL the same day. If a child is in immediate danger, call your local emergency services first.

Make a local copy and add the details below.

• Add the names and contact details of your DSL and deputies.
• Add the local name and phone number for the child protection authority.
• Mark the terms your policy words differently.
• Translate the key terms into the main languages your staff speak.
• Check it each September, when KCSIE is republished.