UK School Filtering and Monitoring: KCSIE, DfE Standards and Online Safety
Filtering and monitoring in schools in the UK sits where several rulebooks meet: statutory safeguarding guidance, the Department for Education standards, the Prevent duty and the Online Safety Act. This hub explains each one in plain terms and shows where category data helps.
Five sources that shape appropriate filtering and monitoring
Each source has a different author, a different legal weight and a different audience. Schools get into trouble when they treat them as one document, so here is how they fit together.
KCSIE
Published by the Department for Education for schools and colleges in England. Schools must have regard to it.
- Governing bodies ensure appropriate systems
- Annual review of effectiveness
- DSL leads on online safety
- Staff training covers filtering and monitoring
DfE standards
Part of the digital and technology standards for schools and colleges. They describe how to meet the KCSIE expectation.
- Roles and responsibilities
- Review at least annually
- Filtering that blocks harm
- Effective monitoring strategies
Prevent
Comes from the Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015. Specified authorities, including schools, must have due regard to it.
- Risk assessment of radicalisation
- Filtering of terrorist content
- Staff awareness and referral routes
Online Safety Act
Places duties on user-to-user and search services. It is aimed at platforms, not at schools, but it defines useful harm categories.
- Illegal content duties
- Children's safety duties
- Ofcom codes of practice
UK Safer Internet Centre
Publishes "appropriate filtering" and "appropriate monitoring" definitions that providers respond to, refreshed for 2026.
- Illegal content requirements
- Inappropriate content categories
- Expected system features
Guidance editions change, often each September. Always check the current guidance on the official pages before you update a policy, and record which edition your review used.
Five UK guides for DSLs, IT leads and governors
Each guide takes one part of the picture and turns it into actions, evidence and questions to ask your provider.
KCSIE filtering and monitoring
What the current edition of Keeping Children Safe in Education expects from governing bodies, the DSL and all staff.
- What changed in the 2026 edition
- DSL and governor responsibilities
- A practical compliance checklist
DfE filtering and monitoring standards
Each of the four filtering and monitoring standards explained, with what it means in practice and the evidence to keep.
- Standard by standard walkthrough
- Technical requirements in plain English
- An evidence folder for inspection
Annual review checklist
A step-by-step filtering and monitoring annual review, with who attends, what to test and how to record it.
Use the annual review checklistPrevent duty and web filtering
How the Prevent duty relates to filtering of extremist content, risk assessment and staff reporting routes.
Read about Prevent duty web filteringOnline Safety Act for schools
What the Online Safety Act does and does not require of schools, and why its harm categories matter to your filter.
See the Online Safety Act for schoolsHow KCSIE has changed, and the DfE guidance around it
Policies often carry wording from an older edition. These guides show what each KCSIE edition changed for online safety, and explain the DfE guidance on generative AI and the full set of digital and technology standards.
KCSIE 2022 changes
Governor training including online safety, clearer filtering and monitoring wording, and telling parents about your systems.
Read the KCSIE 2022 changesKCSIE 2023 changes
The edition that put filtering and monitoring into the DSL role, staff training and the child protection policy.
Read the KCSIE 2023 changesKCSIE 2024 changes
A quiet KCSIE year, a new safeguarding definition that includes online harm, and the October 2024 standards update.
Read the KCSIE 2024 changesKCSIE 2026 changes
The current edition and what 2025 changed before it, with a year-by-year timeline from 2022.
Read the KCSIE 2026 changesDfE generative AI guidance
The DfE position on AI in education, the product safety standards and what they mean for filtering AI tools.
See the DfE generative AI guidance for schoolsDigital and technology standards
All twelve DfE standards, the six core standards for 2030, and a checklist for each one.
Use the digital and technology standards checklistsMulti-academy trusts
Who carries the duty in a trust, phase profiles, delegation and yearly reviews across every academy.
Read about filtering for multi-academy trustsIndependent schools
Proprietor duties, ISI and Ofsted, and what the boarding standards add for devices and house wifi.
See filtering in independent schools in the UKSEND pupils
Profiles by need, keeping assistive technology working, and avoiding over-blocking for pupils with SEND.
Read about SEND pupils and web filteringProvider checklist
What the appropriate filtering definitions cover and how to read a provider's checklist response.
Use the appropriate filtering provider checklistOfsted and online safety
Where online safety sits in the inspection toolkit, safeguarding met or not met, and the evidence to show.
See what Ofsted looks at for online safetyOnline safety in UK schools
The e-safety curriculum in RSHE and computing, the four Cs of risk and the policies you need.
Read the online safety in UK schools guideWales and Scotland
The Welsh filtering standard, Keeping Learners Safe, Scottish council practice and how both differ from England.
Read the Wales and Scotland filtering guideWhat Keeping Children Safe in Education asks of you
KCSIE is the document most inspectors and governors will start from. Its filtering and monitoring expectations are short, but they carry a lot of weight.
Have appropriate systems
The people who govern the school carry the duty. They need to know that suitable filtering and monitoring is running on school devices and the school network.
Review them every year
The 2026 edition makes clear that effectiveness should be reviewed at least once every academic year, led by a member of the senior leadership team.
Give the DSL the lead
The designated safeguarding lead takes lead responsibility for safeguarding, including online safety and understanding the filtering and monitoring in place.
Train all staff
Staff training should cover the expectations, roles and responsibilities around filtering and monitoring, so everyone knows how to report a concern.
Avoid over-blocking
Blocking too much is a risk of its own. A filter that stops pupils researching health, history or online safety itself gets in the way of the teaching it is meant to protect.
Think about the four Cs
Online risks are grouped as content, contact, conduct and commerce. Your filtering and monitoring should reflect all four, not only content.
The full breakdown, including the generative AI and misinformation points, is in our KCSIE filtering and monitoring guide.
The UK Safer Internet Centre "appropriate filtering" definitions
KCSIE points schools to the UK Safer Internet Centre for help deciding what appropriate filtering and monitoring looks like. Its 2026 definitions split content into two groups that are handled very differently.
Illegal content: mandatory blocking
Filtering providers are expected to be members of the Internet Watch Foundation and use its services to block child sexual abuse material. They also integrate the police-assessed list of unlawful terrorist content produced for the Home Office.
Schools must make sure no user, including administrators, can disable or override these lists. The definitions also name illegal content categories drawn from the Online Safety Act.
Inappropriate content: managed locally
Schools should be satisfied that their filter also manages a wider set of inappropriate content. The list is not exhaustive, and each school sets its own rules by age and risk.
This is where website category data does most of its work, because these categories cover millions of ordinary websites rather than a short list of illegal URLs.
System features the definitions expect
Important: we do not supply the IWF list or the police-assessed terrorism list. Those come through filtering providers that meet the membership and integration requirements. We supply website category data that sits around them, covering the wider inappropriate content categories.
Mapping UK content categories to web filtering categories
Our database labels 120 million domains with 58 web filtering categories. Here is an honest view of how those labels line up with the UK inappropriate content list, including where a category alone is not enough.
| UK inappropriate content area | Web filtering categories that help | Fit | What else you need |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pornography | Adult; Lingerie/Swimsuits/Intimate Apparel | Strong | Enforced safe search for image results. |
| Gambling | Gambling | Strong | Watch gaming sites with loot box or betting features. |
| Hate speech and discrimination | Hate/Discrimination | Strong | Monitoring for hateful posts on otherwise allowed platforms. |
| Malware, hacking and filter bypass tools | Malware / Phishing / Suspicious; VPN / Proxy / Anonymizers; Remote Access Tools; URL Shorteners | Strong | Controls on encrypted DNS and app-based VPNs at device level. |
| Harmful content and serious violence | Violence; Weapons | Partial | Dangerous challenges spread on mainstream video and social sites, so monitoring matters. |
| Drugs and other substances | Illegal Drugs; Alcohol; Tobacco | Strong | Allow health education resources through Health & Medicine. |
| Piracy and copyright theft | File Sharing/P2P; Streaming Media | Partial | Local blocks for specific streaming sites you do not want to allow. |
| Self-harm, eating disorders and suicide | No dedicated category; Forums / Message Boards and Community Sites help scope review | Limited | Provider content analysis and monitoring alerts handled by the DSL. |
| Mis- and disinformation | No dedicated category; News/Media and Political help set context | Limited | Local policy, teaching and provider controls. |
| Violence against women and girls | Hate/Discrimination; Violence; Adult | Partial | Monitoring of conduct and contact risks, not only websites. |
| Generative AI content | AI / LLM Tools, plus a set of 11,800+ AI-tool domains in 18 categories | Strong | A decision on which AI tools are approved for learning. |
You can see the full list in our web filtering categories taxonomy, and look up how any site is labelled with the domain category checker.
How category data supports filtering and monitoring in schools
Category data is the layer that lets a filter make sensible decisions about the millions of sites that are not illegal but may still be wrong for a Year 7 class.
Coverage of the sites pupils really visit
The 20 million most visited domains cover 99.99% of web traffic and usage, and all of them are categorised. That means fewer "uncategorised" gaps for pupils to slip through.
New sites are caught early
About 300,000 newly registered domains are categorised every day. Each is checked again after a week and after a month, because many sites only add content after launch.
Several labels per site
A domain can carry several categories, ranked by how much of the site they describe. That helps avoid blocking a useful site because of one minor section.
Different rules for different groups
Clear categories make it easier to build separate profiles for primary pupils, secondary pupils, sixth form and staff, as the standards expect.
Reports the DSL can read
When blocked and allowed traffic is grouped by category, monitoring reports become readable. A DSL can spot a rise in Gambling or Violence without reading raw web addresses.
Evidence for the annual review
Category settings document what is blocked and why. Licence holders also receive validation reports with measured accuracy, which supports the review record.
The category database is delivered as files that run inside a provider's or trust's own systems, with a lookup API included. See database coverage for detail.
Roles: DSL, IT lead, senior leader and governors
The DfE standards are clear that filtering and monitoring is a shared job. Most problems found in reviews come from nobody being sure who owns a task.
Designated safeguarding lead
Takes lead responsibility for online safety and acts on what reports show.
- Reads monitoring reports
- Responds to alerts and concerns
- Assures governors systems work
IT support or provider
Keeps systems running in school and off site, and passes concerns to the DSL.
- Maintains the filter and logs
- Produces reports
- Makes agreed changes
Senior leadership team
A named senior leader owns the standards and leads the annual review.
- Procures systems
- Documents what is blocked and why
- Oversees reporting
Governing body or proprietor
Holds overall responsibility and names a governor to check the standards are met.
- Assigns roles
- Receives review findings
- Challenges and supports leaders
| Task | Governors | SLT lead | DSL | IT support |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Assign filtering and monitoring roles | Owns | Advises | Consulted | Informed |
| Choose and buy systems | Approves | Owns | Consulted | Consulted |
| Decide what is blocked or allowed | Informed | Owns | Consulted | Advises |
| Run the annual review | Takes part | Leads | Takes part | Takes part |
| Act on monitoring alerts | Informed | Informed | Owns | Supports |
| Keep systems working and log changes | Informed | Oversees | Informed | Owns |
Online safety in schools in the UK: which guidance applies
Education is devolved, so the documents differ by nation. The UK Safer Internet Centre definitions are written to be used across all four.
England
Keeping Children Safe in Education plus the DfE filtering and monitoring standards. Applies to maintained schools, academies, independent schools and colleges.
Wales
Keeping Learners Safe is the main safeguarding guidance. Check the current Welsh Government guidance for its filtering expectations.
Scotland
Scotland publishes its own child protection and digital learning guidance. Local authorities often manage filtering centrally.
Northern Ireland
The Department of Education in Northern Ireland issues its own safeguarding and online safety guidance for schools.
Independent schools in England follow KCSIE too. Our page on web filtering for independent schools covers the extra choices a single-site school has to make.
Five misunderstandings about filtering and monitoring
These come up again and again in reviews. Clearing them up early saves time and protects teaching.
For the difference between the tools, see web filtering vs monitoring vs classroom management. For AI tools, see the AI tools blocklist for schools.
Filtering and monitoring in schools: frequently asked questions
Is filtering and monitoring a legal requirement for schools in England?
KCSIE is statutory guidance for schools and colleges in England. It expects governing bodies and proprietors to ensure appropriate filtering and monitoring systems are in place and that their effectiveness is reviewed at least once every academic year.
What is the difference between filtering and monitoring?
Filtering is preventative: it stops users reaching harmful or inappropriate content. Monitoring does not block anything; it lets staff see what is happening on devices and networks so they can respond to safeguarding concerns. The DfE standards expect both.
Do you supply the IWF list or the counter-terrorism list?
No. The IWF list and the police-assessed terrorism list come through filtering providers that meet those requirements. We supply website category data that sits around those lists, covering the wider inappropriate content categories.
Does the guidance apply in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland?
KCSIE and the DfE standards apply in England. Wales has its own Keeping Learners Safe guidance, and Scotland and Northern Ireland publish their own safeguarding and digital guidance. The UK Safer Internet Centre definitions are written to be used across the UK.
How often should we review filtering and monitoring?
At least once every academic year, and also whenever something significant changes, such as a new safeguarding risk, new devices, a change of provider, remote learning, or a change to your network.
Talk to us about your school or trust
Whether you run filtering for one school, a multi-academy trust or a filtering product used by UK schools, we can show how category data fits around your accredited lists.
- 120 million categorised domains
- 58 web filtering categories plus AI tools
- Daily updates for new domains