The EYFS Safeguarding Reforms: Benefits v Challenges
Following on from her previous article, Sara examines these reforms, their impact on practitioners, and examines the benefits and challenges for non-maintained and single-provider settings.
EYFS Safeguarding Reforms
The Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) safeguarding reforms are a significant change for early years providers, which will come into effect at the end of September 2025. These changes will build on the response to the Department for Education (DfE) consultation in 2024, designed to help address longstanding challenges, reinforcing important areas like safer recruitment, child absence responses, whistleblowing, safeguarding training, toileting privacy, paediatric first aid, and eating safely.
Paradoxically, the changes may read as evolutionary rather than revolutionary for many high-quality providers that are already dedicated to complying with best practices. But, for some providers, specifically those with issues around their safeguarding methodology, the new model provides a vital degree of clarity and structure.
The new model creates an opportunity to develop a robust safeguarding culture rooted in prevention, inter-agency working, and the commitment to embed good practice everywhere to strengthen the early years workforce.
Why These Reforms Matter
Despite the fact that many early years providers are proactive in their safeguarding practices, a significant gap exists between early years services and other safeguarding agencies, such as schools, social care, and health services. Early years practitioners are too frequently treated as though they are peripheral players in safeguarding, a misnomer as they play a crucial part in the first line of defence for many vulnerable children.
Key EYFS Changes
Key changes include an expanded role for early years settings as part of Local Safeguarding Partnerships (LSPs). The publication of the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill will place new legal obligations on existing partners in relation to safeguarding, taking the form of Local Authorities, health services, and the police, to a higher degree of involvement of education and childcare settings in safeguarding arrangements. The Bill strengthens the role of both the strategic and operational engagement of these bodies enabling them to contribute to local decision-making on safeguarding. However, if education and childcare settings do not become the fourth statutory safeguarding partner, they will be unable to directly set the standards.
While this represents progress, some have called for stronger legislation to grant education settings full statutory partner status. However, the existing powers within this legislation already enable education providers to share relevant intelligence when needed.
This shift will:
- Drive accountability by making early years providers part of decision-making in safeguarding.
- Communicate and collaborate with multi-agency partners to improve early years providers.
- Make sure concerns are heard and addressed and children don’t fall through the cracks.
It is a major step forward, emphasising the role of early years professionals as primary safeguarding practitioners.
EYFS Challenges and Concerns
Although the EYFS safeguarding changes are likely to improve child protection, early years settings have raised a few concerns around implementation:
- Pressures of Recruitment and Retention
References must be obtained, and all staff suitably vetted, as this is an essential yet potentially exacerbating factor in recruitment practices. Providers are also concerned that these broad measures may complicate the hiring process, which could result in significant understaffing and added pressure on current workers.
- Increased Administrative and Financial Burden
Implementing new policies, such as tracking child absences and maintaining updated safeguarding training records, adds further administrative tasks. Providers are worried about the potential rise in workload and the associated costs, particularly in settings that are already operating with limited resources.
- Gathering Several Emergency Contacts
The requirement to collect more than two emergency contacts per child aims to improve safety but may pose difficulties for some families. Providers have highlighted challenges in securing multiple contacts, particularly for families who travel frequently or have limited support networks.
- Effects on Small or Single Providers
The reforms may be especially challenging for small or single-provider nurseries and childminders. Larger settings with dedicated leads and administrative teams are quite different from smaller provider operations that often run with limited staffing. The additional safeguarding requirements could impose an unrealistic burden on certain professionals who are already stretched too thin, prompting questions of sustainability and feasibility.
- How to Make Multi-Agency Cooperation Work
While the wider inclusion of early years settings in Local Safeguarding Partnerships (LSPs) offers an exciting opportunity, it also raises challenges. For this approach to work, local authorities, the police, and health services need to involve early years professionals in safeguarding processes, not just as consultees, but as partners having an active role. Safeguarding arrangements should not only acknowledge early years settings, but they should also listen to, value, and support early years settings and equip them with the knowledge and resources required to engage meaningfully in multi-agency safeguarding decisions.
EYFS Resources, Training, and Cross-sector Collaboration
However, for these reforms to be truly effective, implementation must be backed by resources, training, and cross-sector collaboration. The success of these changes will rely not only on what is stated in policy but also on how effectively early years professionals are equipped, empowered, and included in safeguarding partnerships.
No one disputes the importance of safeguarding, it is at the heart of early years practice. However, the real question is whether these reforms will be practically achievable, particularly for small and single-provider settings.
While larger organisations may have the resources and staffing capacity to absorb the increased administrative and training requirements, smaller settings often operate with minimal teams, making it challenging to implement these changes without additional support or funding. The concern is not about whether safeguarding should be strengthened, everyone agrees it should, but whether these reforms have been designed with the realities of smaller providers in mind.
Sara Spinks
SSS Author & Former Headteacher
19 March 2025
