Safeguarding
Our Safeguarding policy and procedures comply with:
Safeguarding Children and Safer Recruitment in Education
Keeping Children Safe in Education 2022
Working Together to Safeguard Children 2018
Children’s Safeguarding Assurance Partnership
Treales CE Primary School Values and Ethos
Our Designated Safeguarding Leader is Mrs L Hill
Our Deputy Designated Safeguarding Leaders are Mrs A Hetherington and Mr J Hollis (from Nov 25)
Our nominated Governor for Safeguarding is Katherine Greenhalgh
Our nominated Governor for PREVENT is Katherine Greenhalgh
Our nominated Governor for Online Safety is Katherine Greenhalgh
Our School Commitment
Treales CE Primary School is committed to providing a safe, caring and welcoming environment where every child is able to reach their full potential free from harm, abuse and discrimination. All staff and volunteers are expected to discharge their safeguarding responsibilities effectively and recognise that high self- esteem, confidence, peer support and clear lines of communication with trusted adults helps all children, especially those at risk of or suffering abuse, to thrive.
Our school will therefore:
· Establish and maintain an ethos where children feel safe, secure, valued and respected and feel confident as are encouraged to talk, believing they will be effectively listened to.
· Ensure that children know that there are adults in the school who they can approach if they are worried or are in difficulty.
· Provide a systematic means of monitoring children known or thought to be at risk of harm, and ensure we, the school, contribute to assessments of need and support for those children.
· Include in the curriculum activities and opportunities for PSHE which equip children with the skills they need to stay safe and / or communicate their fears or concerns about abuse.
· Include in the curriculum material which will help children develop realistic attitudes to the responsibilities of adult life, particularly with regard to childcare and parenting skills.
· Ensure that every effort will be made to establish effective working relationships with parents and colleagues from other agencies.
· To ensure that all staff working within our school who have substantial access to children have been checked as to their suitability, including verification of their
identity, qualifications, and a satisfactory DBS check (according to guidance) , and a single central record is kept for audit.
Barrowford St Thomas CE Primary School, in line with our statutory responsibilities and our Mission Statement, believes that all children have a right to freedom from abuse and to be treated with respect and dignity.
Our Safeguarding and Child Protection Policy provides clear direction to staff and others about expected codes of behaviour in dealing with child protection issues. It makes explicit the School’s commitment to the development of good practice and sound procedures. This ensures that child protection concerns and referrals may be handled sensitively, professionally and in ways which prioritise the needs of the child.
Parents/carers can request a copy of this policy
Confidentiality
Confidentiality is an issue which needs to be discussed and fully understood by all those working with children, particularly in the context of child protection.
Staff will never guarantee confidentiality to a child but advise children that the information they have disclosed may need to be shared with others.
Professionals can only work together to safeguard children if there is an exchange of relevant information between them. This has been recognised in principle by the courts.
Any disclosure of personal information to others, (including Children’s Social Care Services), must always have regard to both common and statute law.
Normally, personal information should only be disclosed to third parties (including other agencies) with the consent of the subject of that information (Data Protection Act 1998, European Convention on Human Rights, Article 8). Wherever possible, consent should be obtained before sharing personal information with third parties. In some circumstances, consent may not be possible or desirable but the safety and welfare of a child dictate that the information should be shared. The law permits the disclosure of confidential information necessary to safeguard a child or children. Disclosure should be justifiable in each case, according to the particular facts of the case, and legal advice should be sought if in doubt.
RECORDS AND MONITORING
Well kept records are essential to good child protection practice. Our School is clear about the need to record any concerns held about a child or children within our School, the status of such records and when these records or parts of these records may be shared with other agencies.
School utilises the CPOMS system.
Child Protection records will be accessed and maintained by designated persons only.
Child Protection records will be kept in a secure place separate from all other records pertaining to the child.
Expressions of concern will be maintained as school records in a secure place and accessed only by designated persons.
If a child leaves or transfers to another school official documentation will be transferred to the receiving school.
Transferring Information when a Children Leaves
Our School recognises how imperative it is that relevant child protection information is forwarded to the receiving establishment as quickly as possible. Such information sharing should occur between the DSP as soon as possible or at least within 15 days of the child’s departure. It is inappropriate to simply forward all documentation as this leaves the former school with no record. All records should be kept securely until the ‘child’s’ 25th birthday, after which they should be shredded.
Photographs
Treales CE Primary School operates the following policy on its website regarding the use of photographs, to ensure the privacy and safety of pupils at the school:
By observing these points, the school ensures that visitors to the website cannot link images of pupils to names of pupils. When choosing photographs for the website, the school is mindful of the way pupils may appear in them, and will not include images which are in any way inappropriate, such as close-up portrait shots of individual pupils.
Where pupils are named, only their first names are given;
Where a pupil is named, no photograph of that pupil is displayed;
Where a photograph is used which shows a pupil, no name is displayed.
The school follows a policy of seeking parents' permission before using images which show pupils on the website.
No other private information about pupils is ever published on the website such as surnames or contact details