May 12th 2026 | 6min read
How Linguistic Research is Transforming Safeguarding in Schools
Safeguarding children online has never been more challenging...
Young people live increasingly digital lives, and the language they use to express thoughts, feelings, and risks is constantly evolving. Traditional keyword-based monitoring systems – while vital – are struggling to keep pace. At Senso.cloud, we believe the future of safeguarding lies in combining cutting-edge technology with research-led innovation. That’s why this latest research, published in Applied Corpus Linguistics by Dr Mark McGlashan (University of Liverpool) and Dr Charlotte-Rose Kennedy (Senso’s Safeguarding Language Specialist), represents an important step forward by introducing a powerful new approach to monitoring: corpus linguistics.
What is Corpus Linguistics?
Corpus linguistics is a computational approach used to identify patterns and trends in very large datasets of language.
This allows us to better understand how children use language online, helping us enhance the accuracy of Senso.cloud by finding new keywords and analysing their contexts to reduce false positives.
The Challenge
For many schools, safeguarding technology relies on lists of decontextualised keywords to identify potential risks like bullying, self-harm, or grooming.
While effective to a point, this approach has two major limitations:
- Missed risks. Young people often use subtle, nuanced and coded language to describe sensitive topics. Lists of keywords uninformed by empirical linguistic analysis may miss these conversations entirely, leaving safeguarding staff unaware of escalating issues.
- False positives.Context matters. Corpus linguistic analysis allows researchers to identify relationships between words that frequently co-occur, shedding light on their contexts of use. Contextualising keywords increases the likelihood of only capturing true positives.
As online risks become more sophisticated, safeguarding approaches must evolve beyond simple keyword matching to capture context and nuance.
The Research: A First for Safeguarding Technology
In their paper, “Corpus Linguistics for Safeguarding Children Online”, Dr Mark McGlashan and Dr Charlotte-Rose Kennedy introduce, for the first time, corpus linguistics as a method for improving filtering and monitoring in schools. By analysing a one-million-word dataset of online discussions about suicidal ideation, they demonstrate how corpus linguistic analysis can identify and contextualise safeguarding concerns.
Key findings
Corpus linguistic analysis can uncover context-sensitive patterns in language used by young people when discussing suicidal thoughts. These patterns often include subtle and nuanced expressions of suicidal ideation that decontextualised keyword lists uninformed by empirical linguistic analysis are unlikely to capture.
Filtering and monitoring systems should incorporate keywords that account for these wider patterns to:
- Capture complex and nuanced expressions of suicidal ideation that simple keyword matching alone could not – minimising the risk of missed instances.
- Increase the likelihood of only capturing true positives, reducing the noise caused by false positives.
This research provides a route to improving the state of the art in safeguarding technology, enhancing keyword-based monitoring by focusing on evidence-driven, context-sensitive approaches to safeguarding.
Why It Matters for Schools and Safeguarding Staff
The benefits for educators and safeguarding professionals are significant:
- Fewer false positives: Alerts are more accurate and relevant, saving time for busy safeguarding staff.
- Early intervention: Nuanced language detection allows staff to identify risks before they escalate, supporting proactive safeguarding.
Leading the Way in Research-Led Safeguarding
Senso.cloud’s mission is to redefine the future of safeguarding by bringing together cutting-edge technology, expert research, and real-world understanding of the challenges schools face.
This research truly aligns with our mission to:
- Drive advancements that shape the safeguarding landscape.
- Build solutions around the real pressures faced by safeguarding professionals.
By investing in research like this, Senso is ensuring that our solutions stay ahead of emerging threats and continue to support schools in keeping children safe.
Looking Ahead
Both online risks and new technologies are continuously evolving – from AI deepfakes to new forms of online abuse – and safeguarding technologies must evolve with them. In their paper, Dr Mark McGlashan and Dr Charlotte-Rose Kennedy advocate that corpus linguistics represents an exciting step forward, offering a way to address safeguarding threats through research that can provide actionable, empirical insights into language use in relation to these threats.