There's a change in the KCSIE 2026 draft guidance - and it requires immediate action

Listen to this article on our new YouTube Podcast

There's a change in the Keeping children safe in education (KCSIE) 2026 draft guidance that's generated more sector discussion than almost anything else in the document.

Almost all of that discussion has been about policy.

This article is about the part underneath — what the requirement actually asks of your building, and why the schools most likely to be caught out in September are the ones that handled this as only a pastoral question, when it is also a building question.

What the guidance actually says

The KCSIE 2026 consultation draft — which closed in April and is due to be finalised for September — introduces new statutory provisions around toilet, changing room, and shower facilities. The key requirements are:

Schools must provide separate toilet facilities for boys and girls aged 8 and over. From age 11, the same principle applies to changing rooms and showers. Schools must not allow children to use facilities designated for pupils of the opposite biological sex — that's the guidance's language, not an editorial position.

Where a pupil does not wish to use the facility designated for their sex, the guidance asks schools to consider whether an alternative facility can be provided — but only where doing so doesn't compromise single-sex provision or the safety, privacy, and dignity of other pupils.

This is statutory safeguarding guidance. Ofsted will inspect for it from September 2026.

Here's where it becomes an estates question

The policy discussion — who decides, how it's communicated, how it intersects with existing inclusion approaches — belongs to the headteacher, the DSL, and the governing body. That conversation is well underway in most schools.

The conversation that often hasn't happened yet is the one between the SBM and the site manager.

Because what the guidance describes isn't just a policy position. It's a physical requirement. Separate facilities for boys and girls. An alternative provision option where needed. And a September deadline with Ofsted inspection attached.

Whether your building can actually deliver that is an entirely different question — and the answer depends on when your toilets were built, how your changing provision is configured, and whether there's a room, a space, or a budget to create what the guidance asks for.

The audit question most buildings haven't faced yet

Not every school building was designed with this configuration in mind. Older primaries in particular may have a single unisex toilet block, open-plan changing provision, or facilities that haven't been meaningfully reconfigured in decades.

The "alternative facility" clause is worth reading carefully. If a pupil doesn't wish to use the designated single-sex facility, the school must consider whether an alternative can be provided. That alternative — typically a self-contained, gender-neutral single cubicle — doesn't exist in many buildings. Creating one requires space, and space requires works, and works require lead time and budget.

The question isn't whether your policy is right. The question is whether your building, as it currently stands, can meet the requirement by September — and whether the people responsible for the building have actually checked.

In a lot of schools, the honest answer is: nobody has looked yet.

What to do

This is practical territory. A few straightforward steps:

• Walk the building with the guidance in hand. Map your current toilet and changing provision against the requirements. Aged 8+: are facilities genuinely separate by sex? Aged 11+: same question for changing and shower provision. Is there a usable alternative facility for pupils who request it?

• Identify any gaps that require physical works. If the answer is no to any of the above, what would it take to address it? A new partition, a repurposed room, a door change? Get that scoped now, not in August.

• Check your minor works budget and timeline. Most building works that need to be in place by September need to be commissioned before half term. If your premises team is already stretched on the summer schedule, this needs to be in the queue now.

• Document the process. Ofsted's approach to these inspections will include assessing whether schools have considered and responded to the requirement. A paper trail that shows the building was audited, gaps were identified, and action was taken is a significantly better position than one where nothing was recorded either way.

From September 2026, a statutory requirement lands that Ofsted will inspect for — and part of that requirement is physical. Whether your building meets it isn't a question a policy document answers. It's a question a site visit answers.

The schools that are ready will be the ones that treated it as both.

Statlog....more than just compliance and premises software