ÌÇÐÄVlog

Experience is often seen as one of the greatest assets a designated safeguarding lead (DSL) can have.

The assumption is understandable: the more cases you encounter, the more confident you become in making decisions.

In reality, I have found almost the opposite to be true.

Experience does not remove uncertainty. It teaches you to recognise it. Experience reminds you that safeguarding is rarely about finding the right answer quickly. More often, it is about asking the right questions for long enough to reach the best possible judgement.

Safeguarding has few easy answers

Some of the most difficult decisions I have made as a DSL have come in situations where there was no obvious right answer.

There have been occasions when colleagues or other professionals have questioned why I wanted to make a referral, challenge a view or continue pursuing a concern that they felt had not reached the threshold.

Those conversations are rarely comfortable, particularly when others believe the proposed action is disproportionate.

However, safeguarding leadership cannot simply be about accepting the first explanation that we are given. Professional curiosity means resisting the temptation to treat reassurance as resolution. The first answer is not always the complete answer.

Question everything

That curiosity is often spoken about in relation to children and families, but it should extend much further.

Effective safeguarding leaders question systems, processes and even their own assumptions just as readily as they question the information presented.

Take attendance, for example. A decline tells us something has changed, but not why. Behaviour data may identify a pattern, but it cannot explain the experiences behind it.

A safeguarding chronology may contain a series of seemingly unrelated concerns that only become significant when someone steps back and asks whether they are connected.

Data is valuable, but it should prompt enquiry rather than replace it.

The same applies to school systems. Procedures are essential because they provide consistency and clarity, particularly when decisions need to be made under pressure.

Yet good safeguarding leadership recognises that procedures support professional judgement; they do not replace it.

What are we missing?

If a process leads to a conclusion that does not sit comfortably with the available evidence, the answer is not simply to trust the process. It is to ask whether something has been missed. Has every voice been heard? Is there additional context? Are we focusing on an individual incident when we should be looking at a wider pattern?

Perhaps the most difficult questions, however, are the ones we ask ourselves.

• Have I accepted this explanation because the evidence supports it or because it is the easiest conclusion to reach?
• Am I allowing previous experience to influence my judgement?
• Have I become so familiar with this family or this pupil that I have stopped noticing what has changed?
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Experience should never make us more certain than the evidence allows. If anything, it should make us more reflective, more measured and more willing to challenge our own thinking.

As schools prepare for a new academic year, safeguarding leaders will welcome new pupils, new staff and new routines.

The power of culture

This makes it an ideal timeÌýto reinforce a culture where respectful challenge is valued and professional curiosity is expected.

Safeguarding leadership is not defined by having all the answers. It is defined by creating the conditions where the right questions keep getting asked, even when that feels uncomfortable

The most effective safeguarding teams are not those where everyone agrees. They are the teams where people feel confident to ask one more question and respectfully challenge one more decision if it is in the child’s best interests.

David Strange is a founding middle school headteacher and whole-school designated safeguarding lead in Doha, Qatar. He previously worked in the UK for 19 years in various senior leadership roles, and across these settings he has continuously held the role of DSL since 2014