The recent Confederation of School Trusts Annual Conference included a workshop hosted by RM. Titled “Safeguarding Learners in a digital age: what trust leaders need to know”.
It featured contributions from Jon Needham, Director of Safeguarding and Mental Health, Oasis Community Learning and Angela Munoz Aroca, Senior Campaigns and Communications Officer at Internet Watch Foundation (IWF).
One delegate described the session as “vital, powerful, practical… and scary” while another said that it “brought me up short, despite thinking I am a seasoned safeguarding campaigner”.
Jon Needham started the session by posing questions about some alarming statistics to place safeguarding in an up-to-date context. If you weren’t in the room at the time, or need a reminder, here is a selection.
Safeguarding statistics that set the scene
The most popular answer in the room to the question “How many children were abducted in the UK last year?” was correct. According to the ONS the number of child abduction offences recorded by the police in England and Wales Jan 2024 to Dec 2024 was 1,128 - down 3% on the prior year.
Of the four options presented, only 21% of attendees chose correctly when asked about the percentage of families unknown to social services at the time of an incident causing a serious care review. The figure is 23% according to research commissioned by the Department for Education.
The audience underestimated the number of children in 10,000 who would be on a child protection plan. According to figures released on 30 October 2025 (just after the conference) 40.6 children per 10,000 are on a child protection plan. Most attendees thought it was less than half that.
Attention then turned to the alarming rise in AI-generated child sexual abuse imagery. Confirmed reports of AI-generated child sexual abuse imagery have risen 400%, with AI child sexual abuse discovered on 210 webpages in the first six months of 2025 according to the IWF. The fact that 62% of those in the workshop chose the correct answer shows that there is good general awareness of this issue. However, the comments submitted suggest a level of uncertainty about how to combat it.
The final data point to consider concerned the gender balance of media submitted to the IWF’s Report Remove service. More than half of attendees thought that 30% or less of the reports IWF acted on were sent by boys. In fact, boys made up 64% of the total reports the IWF assessed as criminal images.
Angela Munoz spoke about the IWF’s work to tackle online harms and shared resources developed by the IWF to help schools and trusts communicate the risks to leaners and other stakeholders.
Action points to tackle safeguarding challenges
The responses given by delegates when asked about what points they would take back to their trust showed that the session encouraged delegates to consider online safety more widely. Several themes emerged.
- Sharing available resources widely – several delegates said that they would be using IWF resources with staff, pupils and parents.
- Involving learners in safeguarding – more than one person said that they would investigate opportunities to co-create the safeguarding curriculum with learners. Others said that they would engage students in a more open, whole trust way rather than leaving this work to staff in the safeguarding and therapy teams.
- AI cannot be ignored – one attendee was planning to create a team to devise an AI strategy while others mentioned that they would be including the AI element in their ongoing training about safeguarding.
- Move beyond simple data logging - to analyse trends, proactively identify vulnerabilities, and ensure DSLs and Headteachers are actively checking systems.
Jon Needham has written extensively on boys’ involvement in various elements of behaviour relating safeguarding. He has published a book on the topic of sexting among teenage boys, available from the publisher.