In the past the recording of safeguarding concerns was often entirely paper-based. This was not only clunky, as everything had to be stored in giant filing cabinets, but it also meant that children had to talk directly to an adult to share any concerns.

For some children talking to an adult was fine but for others it was too daunting and so concerns went unheard. However, the rise in digital platforms has made it easy for concerns to be recorded, stored and accessed whenever required, and this also offers the option of anonymous reporting.

Indeed, a recent Tes report around safeguarding patterns in international schools found that a third of respondents now provide anonymous online tools for children to use.

This is something that our school started offering in autumn 2023 to ensure that we were able to hear more insights from children. Since then the impact has been clear to see - with some notable benefits, as well as new challenges.

Safeguarding: introducing anonymous reporting

1. Students will use the form

The most notable aspect of the new system - and a reassuring one - was that students did want to use the anonymous platforms.

To build engagement we shared the form through QR codes around school, on the safeguarding page of the school’s website and in student bulletins.

Since then many reports have been made across our middle and high school.

2. Students may not use the form as you intended

At first, younger students tended to use the form as a place to note, to us adults at least, seemingly innocuous interactions with their peers; names called, pens taken, paper aeroplanes made.

However seemingly minor, this data was useful in forming wider pictures of students and trends - though it took consistent messaging and repetition to highlight to students the purpose of the form.

This messaging, in itself, is good practice because, in the course of educating students on what we mean by safeguarding, we continue to remind our teachers.

Furthermore, broader, more serious patterns were also becoming apparent. Older students, in particular, had a good grasp of the sort of content that should be recorded and they did record it, using the form to express things they knew needed to be shared with adults.

Liberated by anonymity, they now had a place to communicate anxieties, hunches and feelings of unease.

3. Consider workload implications

When I began teaching, safeguarding leads often quietly boasted that only having 10 or 12 reports per school year was because of the harmonious, safe idyll they had created, ignorant of the reality that the cumbersome paper form teachers had to complete was so unwieldy few bothered to complete it.

However, with anonymous online platforms safeguarding teams are now dealing with 10 to 12 reports a month - something that, far from being concerning, actually underlines the benefits of having a system that allows for easy reporting by both students and teachers.

But, given this increase in reports, you need to be sure that your safeguarding team has the bandwidth to handle the extra work.

In part because of this increase in reporting as our systems developed, our school formed a safeguarding team to support the designated safeguarding lead, with a representative for each section of the school.

This meant a report by a high school student could be dealt with by the high school representative, and so on.

4. Moving beyond anonymity

For some students, the cloak of anonymity is their first, tentative step towards sharing something deeply personal with a trusted adult - helping them to gingerly move towards a more direct expression of what they may be experiencing.

However, in a world where too many of us hide behind online avatars and anonymous comment sections, we need to support students in understanding that, yes, anonymity is helpful as a first step but it is only a bridge to places where a student can look an adult in the eye and tell them how they truly feel.

We have had students first express themselves anonymously before, perhaps a week later, coming in person to share the same story. This takes courage, and anonymous forms can be a useful, student-centred first step towards building high trust between students and safeguarding teams.

Anonymous forms are perhaps best seen as a map showing the way to a destination of high trust between students and teachers.

Andy Bayfield is assistant principal at St Mary’s International School in Tokyo, Japan

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