Safeguarding
Springhead School is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children. To achieve our commitment, we will ensure continuous development and improvement of robust safeguarding processes and procedures that promote a culture of safeguarding amongst our staff, visitors and volunteers.
Every person who works with our children understand their responsibility in keeping children safe and should be confident in how they will do that.
Our school community has a duty to safeguard and promote the welfare of children who are our pupils. This means that we have Safeguarding and Child Protection policies and procedures in place, which are available on our website. All staff, including our volunteers and supply staff, must ensure that they are aware of our procedures.
Sometimes we may need to share information and work in partnership with other agencies when there are concerns about a child’s welfare. We will always ensure that our concerns about our pupils are discussed with their parents/carers first unless we have reason to believe that this is not in the child’s best interests or a child is at significant risk or in immediate danger.
What is safeguarding?
Safeguarding means:
- protecting children from abuse and maltreatment
- preventing harm to children’s health or development
- ensuring children grow up with the provision of safe and effective care
- taking action to enable all children and young people to have the best outcomes.
Child protection is part of the safeguarding process. It focuses on protecting individual children identified as suffering or likely to suffer significant harm. This includes child protection procedures which detail how to respond to concerns about a child
Who to speak to
If you have any concerns regarding the welfare of a pupil, please report it to a designated Safeguarding Leader (DSL) or Deputy Designated Safeguarding Leader (DDSL)
Our Policies are available here: Policies – Springhead School.
Prevent Strategy
As part of our ongoing safeguarding and child protection duties we are fully behind the government’s Prevent Strategy. All staff have received ‘Prevent’ training and understand about and how to deal with any issues they may see inside or outside school.
Operation Encompass
Operation Encompass is the reporting of police attended domestic abuse incidents to schools, prior to the start of the next school day, where there are children in the home.
Operation Encompass will ensure that a member of the school staff, who is also a safeguarding leader, known as a Key Adult, is trained to allow them to liaise with the police and to use the information that has been shared in confidence, while ensuring that the school is able to make provision for possible difficulties experienced by children, or their families, who have experienced a domestic abuse incident. Our Key adults are our Headteacher, Deputy and Assistant Head.
Worried about a child?
Make a referral
If it is out of school hours and you are unable to speak to a Designated Safeguarding Lead about concerns you have about a child then you could use the following contacts:
Where there are significant immediate concerns about the safety of a child, you should contact the police on 999
Everyone has a responsibility to refer a child when it is believed or suspected that a child:
- Has suffered significant harm and /or;
- Is likely to suffer significant harm and/or;
- Has developmental and welfare needs which are likely only to be met through provision of family support services (with agreement of the child’s parent).
If you believe the situation is urgent but does not require the police, please call 0300 131 2 131 to make a telephone contact with the MAST team at North Yorkshire.
Should your call be outside of business hours (Monday – Friday / 9am-5pm) please still call 0300 131 2 131 to speak to the Emergency Duty Team.
Resources
Online Safety
We are committed to protecting our pupils online. Please visit our Online Safety page: E-Safety – Springhead School
Government guidance for parents
E-safety is an integral part of children’s education in today’s digital world and is embedded in their learning at school. We also want to help our parents and children improve their own understanding of e-safety issues so they can learn to use the internet and all digital media in a safe and secure way.
For Children/Young People
Own It
A place to help you boss your life online – questions, answers and tools to help you make the most of your time online
Childline
Childline is here to help anyone under 19 in the UK with any issue they’re going through. You can talk about anything. Whether it’s something big or small, our trained counsellors are here to support you. Childline is free, confidential and available any time, day or night:
Just a joke?
Plans, quick activities, a quiz and guide designed to explore problematic online sexual behaviour with 9-12 year olds:
childnet.com/resources/just-a-joke
For Parents
Internet Matters
Parent Zone
At Home
As a parent you’ll know how important the internet is to children and young people – they use it to learn, play, socialise and express themselves. It’s a highly creative place of amazing opportunities. But the technology they use every day can seem a bit daunting and you might worry about the risks your child or young person can face online – such as bullying, contact from strangers or the possibility of them seeing illegal or inappropriate content.
Talking to them about how they use the internet will help you start to protect your children online and decrease the risks they face. Here are some conversation starter ideas from childnet.com
- Ask your children/young people to tell you about the sites they like to visit and what they enjoy doing online.
- Ask them about how they stay safe online. What tips do they have for you, and where did they learn them? What is OK and not OK to share?
- Ask them if they know where to go for help, where to find the safety advice, privacy settings and how to report or block on the services they use.
- Encourage them to help. Perhaps they can show you how to do something better online or they might have a friend who would benefit from their help and support.
- Think about how you use the internet as a family. What could you do to get more out of the internet together and further enjoy your lives online
- It’s important to remember that the legal age to have an account on most social media – Instagram, Facebook, Youtube, Snapchat – is 13 years old.
Parent Resources
At School
As part of your child/young person’s curriculum and the development of ICT skills, we provide access to the internet in supervised lessons and in the Common Room at Break times at Lady Edith’s. We strongly believe that the use of the web and email is hugely worthwhile and an essential tool for children and young people as they grow up in the modern world. But because there are always concerns about children and young people having access to undesirable materials, we have taken positive steps to deal with this risk in school. Our school internet access provider operates a filtering system that restricts access to inappropriate materials.
At the start of the school year (and throughout our taught sessions), each class discusses how we can all stay safe online and the dangers we may face on the internet. We also have an Acceptable Use Agreement for students.
