After an Operation Encompass notification, the DSL or deputy should check its source, record receipt securely, establish who owns the response and review what support the child needs. Check whether a referral is known to have been made. A notification never replaces a referral. Don't wait for attendance analysis or a scheduled review before acting on a safeguarding concern. Follow the school's safeguarding policy and local children's social care route; contact emergency services where there's immediate danger.
This guide is for school DSLs, deputies, pastoral and attendance leaders, and SENCos in England. It uses Keeping children safe in education 2026, effective from 1 September 2026, and guidance checked on 11 November 2026. The worked record below is a suggested administrative method, not a national school response deadline.
Know what the notification establishes
Operation Encompass enables police information about domestic abuse to reach the child's education setting so staff can provide support. The Home Office's statutory Operation Encompass guidance, published on 7 November 2025, concerns the police duty in England and Wales. It aims for notification before the start of the next school day, with exceptions notified as soon as possible. That police timescale isn't a school deadline for completing a support assessment.
KCSIE's domestic abuse and Operation Encompass material explains that the duty creates no new responsibilities for schools and colleges. It also makes the referral boundary explicit. Receipt doesn't establish that children's social care has received a referral, assessed the situation or arranged support. Record what is confirmed and what still needs checking. A blank referral field cannot settle that question.
The Home Office's Domestic Abuse statutory guidance explains that abuse can include controlling or coercive behaviour. It also explains recognition of children as victims under section 3 of the Domestic Abuse Act 2021 when they see, hear or experience the effects of abuse and meet the relationship conditions. A school shouldn't require a visible injury or a change in marks before taking the information seriously. Classroom observations can't determine the full circumstances.
Open one restricted receipt record
Everything in this walkthrough is synthetic and wholly invented. It describes no pupil, family, school, member of staff or customer. There are no names, ages, locations or incident details. The sequence demonstrates record handling and support decisions; it cannot prescribe the response to an actual notification.
The first signal is a notification arriving through the school's agreed secure route. The receiving deputy DSL records the receipt time, sender and channel, source reference and the event time where supplied. These remain separate fields: the time a message arrives doesn't tell the reader when an event happened. The original stays in the authorised safeguarding record with its access restrictions.
The deputy checks that the information relates to the correct pupil through the established process. An uncertain match or unexpected sender needs verification using trusted contact details. It doesn't justify forwarding the message widely to ask who recognises the family. The record shows who checked the source, any correction and which DSL or deputy has accepted responsibility. Absence or leave needs explicit cover.
Here, the notification doesn't confirm the referral position. The DSL records that uncertainty and checks through the agreed partner route. The school still follows its own safeguarding responsibilities. Working together to safeguard children 2026, published on 18 March, provides the statutory multi-agency framework for England. If the information warrants a referral under local procedures, the DSL follows that route without waiting for a reply about another agency's action.
Let context change the support question
The DSL now asks a narrow question: what does the child need to access school safely today, and what needs further safeguarding action? An authorised attendance colleague confirms that the register contains a late mark. A teacher has recorded difficulty settling into a lesson. Neither entry explains its cause. Their recording times also need checking before anyone describes a sequence.
The SENCo checks the existing support arrangement and finds that an agreed quiet arrival option wasn't available that morning. This changes the enquiry. The school needs to restore its own arrangement and hear how the child experienced the morning through their established communication method. The late mark and lesson entry cannot show how much any difficulty arose from that gap or from events outside school.
The DSL reads the necessary source records and distinguishes an adult's observation, the child's attributed account and professional interpretation. SEND, disability, behaviour and attendance aren't proxies for abuse or parental capacity. No score or combination of entries can diagnose trauma, substantiate harm or decide a referral threshold. An apparently ordinary school day wouldn't establish safety either.
In this invented record, the SENCo owns restoring the arrival arrangement and confirming delivery to the DSL. A pastoral colleague offers an accessible check-in without asking the child to repeat an account of events. Any disclosure follows the school's reporting procedure promptly. Support isn't conditional on the child explaining what happened. The separate review of protective and support arrangements considers whether an agreed response is actually reaching a child.
Give staff the instruction they need
The teacher needs an actionable support instruction and a route back to the DSL. In this example, that means making the agreed arrival space available, allowing access to the trusted adult and reporting any concern promptly. The teacher doesn't need the police message, family narrative or an explanation copied into the behaviour log. Keep the detailed safeguarding account in its authorised source record.
Family communication needs a safety decision. The DSL checks the school's procedures and relevant partner advice about whether, how and with whom to communicate. An ordinary attendance message, shared inbox or assumed safe contact could expose information. Don't automatically send a notification acknowledgement to family contacts or ask a classroom teacher to raise the incident at collection. Record the decision, rationale, safe channel and responsible person where communication is appropriate.
The statutory information-sharing guidance, updated on 10 September 2026, addresses the duty that commenced on 30 September. Necessary safeguarding sharing still requires a lawful basis, necessity, proportionality, security and an accountable decision. Apply the guidance's statutory limitation concerning greater detriment to the child. Access to sensitive metadata, including the existence of a notification, also needs justification. A shared support instruction shouldn't reveal more than its recipient needs.
Leave the next reviewer a clear question
The synthetic record ends with the DSL owning the safeguarding response and unresolved referral check, the SENCo owning the arrival repair, and the pastoral colleague owning the offered check-in. The DSL chooses a review point under local procedures and records why that timing fits the situation. New information or concern brings action forward; nobody waits for the diary entry. At handover, the covering deputy can see each open action and its source without reconstructing the case from general school records.
At review, ask whether the arrangement was delivered, whether the child's account was heard accessibly, what remains unknown and whether the response needs changing. An offer isn't evidence of delivery. No further school entry isn't evidence that harm has ended. An unanswered partner enquiry remains unresolved. Retain who made each decision, its reasons and the next action. Use the local professional challenge route if the response leaves a safeguarding concern unresolved.
For wider record quality, the chronology audit examines source and ownership checks; the cumulative concern review deals with interpretation across repeated records. This notification review starts with a specific incoming source and follows the support and referral questions it leaves open.
Student Radar Safeguard supports authorised chronology and source-case review. Access remains restricted to permitted users. Software can't establish that an external referral happened or decide the safeguarding response. Explore safeguarding recording and casework if that record workflow fits your school's needs.
Sources and further reading
- DfE: Keeping children safe in education 2026, statutory guidance for England, effective 1 September 2026; domestic abuse and Operation Encompass material in Annex B, printed pages 163 to 166.
- Home Office: Information sharing duty: Operation Encompass, statutory guidance on the police duty in England and Wales, published 7 November 2025.
- DfE: Working together to safeguard children 2026, statutory guidance for England, published 18 March 2026.
- DfE: Information sharing to safeguard children and young people, statutory guidance updated 10 September 2026; duty commenced 30 September 2026.
- Home Office: Domestic Abuse statutory guidance, updated 13 April 2023; used for abuse and child-victim context, alongside the later notification and safeguarding guidance above.