Duty of Care in Everyday Practice

Duty of care is a well-used term, but it is worth pausing to consider what it really means in everyday practice.

What is Duty of Care?

In plain terms, duty of care is the legal and moral responsibility to take reasonable steps to keep other people safe from harm. In schools, this means doing what a sensible, trained and responsible person would do in their role to protect children, young people, staff and visitors from avoidable risk. It is about being reasonable, informed and proactive and it applies to everyone in schools, not just teachers.

Most people working in schools would say they understand what duty of care means. But if you reframe the question and ask what it means for each individual in their role, for the people they are responsible for, the answers are often much less certain.

Duty of Care in Schools

For a classroom teacher, duty of care might feel like keeping children safe during lessons. For a teaching assistant, it might be about supervision of an individual child or playground duty. The primary consideration for a site manager, may be about site safety. First aiders may identify duty of care as providing a competent first response to medical needs. For those undertaking governance roles often apply duty of care to more overarching needs, for example developing policy. All of these are correct, but none are complete on their own.

The truth is that duty of care can often be interpreted differently as the above examples demonstrate, and that is exactly where things can go wrong.

Safeguarding

In terms of safeguarding, duty of care is not just a legal phrase. It is a lived responsibility, not a single concept. Duty of care is fluid and changes shape constantly.

The greatest risk in safeguarding is the quiet assumption that someone else has it covered. That assumption is how gaps appear. And safeguarding failures almost always live in the gaps. Duty of care does not belong to a single role, job title or department. It is a shared responsibility that only works when everyone understands the part they play and remains alert to where risk might surface. When responsibility is fragmented, safety weakens. When it is shared, protection strengthens.

Duty of Care Outside the School Setting

Duty of care does not stop at the school gate, and it does not start only when something goes wrong. Any change in context increases risk: moving locations, different routines, unfamiliar environments, travel, crowds, weather, activities, medical needs, fatigue. These are not exceptions to normal safeguarding, they are moments when safeguarding matters most.

Responsibility begins long before a visit or activity takes place and continues until every child is safely home. It lives in the planning, the thinking ahead, the conversations, the challenge, the risk assessment, the staffing decisions, the medical checks, the consent processes, the briefings, and the judgement calls about what is safe and appropriate for individual children.

When incidents are reviewed, it is not paperwork alone that is examined. What matters most is whether reasonable steps were taken to anticipate risk, reduce harm and respond appropriately when things changed. That is duty of care in practice.

These moments are not owned by one role. They belong to everyone who works around children. If your role brings you into contact with children or their families, you are part of the safeguarding system. You hold insight, perspective and responsibility.

Safeguarding depends on people noticing, sharing concerns and acting early, not assuming that someone else will.

Duty of care operates at system level. Safety does not happen by chance. It is built through systems, culture and leadership decisions. Policies, training, staffing, resourcing, supervision and challenging, all shape how safe a setting truly is. When systems are weak, unclear or treated as a tick-box exercise, risk increases, even when individuals are well-intentioned.

When serious incidents occur, scrutiny looks not only at individual actions but at whether the environment made safe practice possible.

Duty of care is time critical as well as preventative. Some forms of duty of care are immediate. Decisions may need to be made quickly, accurately and calmly, sometimes with little warning. Medical needs, injuries and sudden changes in a child’s health are moments where preparation, communication and clarity matter deeply.

Crucially, duty of care here is not only about responding in the moment. It is about having systems in place beforehand: clear records, consent, training, safe storage, information sharing and confidence to act. What may appear to be small oversights can carry serious consequences. A missed detail, a delay, an assumption, a lack of clarity. These are not minor errors; they are points where duty of care is either upheld or compromised.

Safeguarding works when responsibility is understood as collective, continuous and active. It is not about blame; it is about awareness. It is not about hierarchy; it is about connection. It is not about reacting after harm; it is about reducing the chance of harm in the first place.

Most importantly, it means recognising that your duty is not theoretical.

It applies in the playground, on the minibus, in the office, in the first aid room, in the board meeting and in the quiet moments when a child may be struggling.

When staff truly understand what duty of care means, this exemplifies best practice.

Sara Spinks

SSS Author & Former Headteacher

28 January 2026