Ensuring compliance
It's one of the areas most scrutinised during inspection, and it sits within the DfE's digital and technology standards, which every school and college is expected to meet by 2030.
Computeam delivers total compliance support for schools and trusts – filtering and monitoring delivered through Computeam Secure, staff training tracked through Learning Locker and progress against the digital standard evidenced in Compass.
What KCSIE requires
Content. Contact. Conduct. Commerce
When describing online risk, KCSIE and the DfE often refer to the 4Cs: content, contact, conduct and commerce. As such, to ensure compliance, schools and colleges are expected to implement, actively manage and regularly review their filtering and monitoring systems. That covers:
Roles and responsibilities
Someone needs to own filtering and monitoring: a named link across leadership, your DSL and IT support. Schools should hold a documented list of what's blocked and why, and every member of staff should understand their role within it.
Annual review
Filtering and monitoring provisions need to be reviewed at least once a year, with governors, SLT, your DSL, and your IT provider all involved. Governors bear overall responsibility for ensuring the review takes place.
Filtering that blocks harmful content without shutting down learning
Your filtering system needs to block harmful and inappropriate content across every device connected to your network, school-owned or personal, staff or guest, without unreasonably restricting teaching and learning.
Monitoring that works for your setting
Your monitoring strategy needs to align with your school’s operational needs, and your DSL needs to be able to access and read monitoring reports directly.
Overblocking
Overblocking – filtering that's too strict – can cause problems of its own, by blocking legitimate resources like PSHE materials or news coverage. KCSIE is explicit that filtering shouldn't unreasonably restrict teaching, learning or administration or stop students from learning to assess and manage risk for themselves.
AI in the classroom
The DfE has published Generative AI: product safety expectations to help schools use generative AI safely, setting out how filtering and monitoring requirements apply to AI tools used in education. If your school is rolling out AI tools for staff or pupils, they need to sit within your existing filtering and monitoring policy.
Where schools commonly fall short
Frequent gaps observed across schools and MATs:
No one's officially named.
Filtering and monitoring are handled informally by various IT staff members on an ad-hoc basis, with no named leadership or governor oversight on record.
The annual review doesn't happen, or happens without the right people in the room.
IT checking a setting on its own isn't the same as SLT, the DSL and a governor reviewing it together.
The DSL can't produce a monitoring report on demand.
Reports might exist, but if your DSL can't pull one during an inspection or in response to a safeguarding concern, a critical vulnerability is exposed.
Staff training is not evidenced.
Most staff have had a safeguarding briefing at some point, but schools often can't say when, who delivered it or whether it covered filtering and monitoring specifically.
There's no record of any of it.
The right things might be happening, but without a consistent digital audit trail, that's hard to prove.
These persistent vulnerabilities explain why filtering and monitoring consistently ranks as one of the standards where schools report the least confidence.
What good looks like
Despite a key part of compliance requirements being an annual review, filtering and monitoring shouldn’t be considered a once-a-year job.
Good practice responds continuously.
A school spots a behaviour trend around misogynistic bullying, for example: the DSL doesn't simply arrange training or an assembly – they check monitoring reports for a rise in related search terms and add relevant names or terms to the filtering blocklist.
The back-and-forth between staff on the ground and the technology is what turns good safeguarding into great safeguarding. DSLs who treat filtering and monitoring as a safeguarding partner, instead of a compliance exercise, save time and catch problems at the root.
A school that's on top of filtering and monitoring can typically show:
A named lead for filtering and monitoring, with a link governor in place
A documented, up-to-date list of what's blocked and why
Evidence of an annual review involving SLT, DSL, IT and governors
Staff training records showing who's completed filtering and monitoring training, and when
A DSL who can access and interpret monitoring reports without help
A clear record of how concerns raised through monitoring get followed up
Each of those points maps to something you can own, review and evidence.
How Computeam Helps
Filtering and monitoring touch three separate things: the technical safeguard itself, the training that sits around it – and the evidence that proves it's being managed. Computeam covers all three.
Filtering and monitoring, managed with Computeam Secure
Computeam Secure provides filtering and monitoring designed for education settings, covering every device on your network without unreasonably restricting teaching and learning.
Staff training, evidenced with Learning Locker
Filtering and monitoring training is one of the areas schools most often can't evidence, usually because it's delivered informally and never recorded. Learning Locker gives staff role-based online training they complete in their own time, with full completion tracking so you can show exactly who's done what and when.
Reviews and evidence tracked in Compass
Compass tracks your progress against the DfE's filtering and monitoring standard, specifically prompting your annual review, assigning actions when something needs updating, and building the evidence trail for an inspection or a governor meeting.
FAQs
What does KCSIE say about filtering and monitoring?
KCSIE requires schools and colleges to have filtering and monitoring systems in place, with clear roles and responsibilities, an annual review involving leadership and governors, and monitoring that's effective for the setting.
Who is responsible for filtering and monitoring in a school?
Day-to-day management usually sits with IT, but KCSIE places responsibility with a named SLT member, who leads the annual review with the support of the DSL and IT, and with governor oversight. It's an SLT-owned responsibility, not an IT one.
How often should filtering and monitoring be reviewed?
At least once a year, with SLT, the DSL, IT and a link governor involved. Regular checks on the system itself should happen at least annually, too.
What's the difference between filtering and monitoring?
Filtering blocks access to harmful or inappropriate content before it reaches you. Monitoring tracks activity within school systems to identify and address concerns. KCSIE expects schools to run both together.
Does filtering and monitoring apply to personal and guest devices?
Yes. KCSIE's filtering standard covers all devices connected to the school's network, including personal devices and guest accounts, not just school-owned equipment.
Who should be in the room for the annual filtering and monitoring review?
SLT, the DSL, IT support, and a governor or trustee with responsibility for filtering and monitoring. Governors are ultimately responsible for ensuring the review takes place.
What training do staff need for filtering and monitoring?
Staff need training on their specific role within your filtering and monitoring set-up, including how to report a concern. This applies to all school staff, not just IT or safeguarding leads.
Can our DSL access monitoring reports without going through IT?
That's what KCSIE expects. The DSL should be able to access and read monitoring reports directly, without needing IT to pull the data each time.
How do we evidence filtering and monitoring for an inspection?
Keep a documented list of what's blocked and why, records of your annual review, staff training completion records, and evidence of how monitoring concerns are followed up. Compass is built to track and hold this evidence for you.
Does Learning Locker cover filtering and monitoring training specifically?
Learning Locker includes statutory compliance training on filtering and monitoring, alongside its wider course library, with completion tracking that your administrator can check at any time.
Does Compass track just filtering and monitoring, or all the DfE digital and technology standards?
Compass covers the full set of published DfE digital and technology standards, including filtering and monitoring, so you can track progress across all of them in one place rather than managing a single standard in isolation.
What happens if our filtering and monitoring provisions aren't up to standard?
It's a safeguarding and compliance risk worth addressing directly rather than leaving it until an inspection or an incident forces the issue. We can't tell you how an individual inspection will go, but a documented, reviewed setup puts you in a stronger position than an informal one.
Is our firewall the same as filtering and monitoring?
No. A firewall is one part of your wider security set-up. Filtering and monitoring specifically cover what content is accessible and how activity is tracked and reviewed, which is a distinct KCSIE requirement.
Do multi-academy trusts need to manage filtering and monitoring separately at each school?
Every school within a trust needs to meet the standard, though a trust can choose to coordinate policy, review dates and reporting centrally. Compass supports trust-wide visibility across multiple schools if that's the model you want.
Where can we check the latest KCSIE guidance on filtering and monitoring?
KCSIE and the DfE's digital and technology standards are reviewed and updated periodically, so it's worth checking GOV.UK directly for the current version.
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