St. Peter's Primary School is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and expects all staff and volunteers to share this commitment.

What is Safeguarding?

Safeguarding is the action that is taken to promote the welfare of children and protect them from harm.

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.

Details of policies and procedures in place that contribute to our safeguarding commitment can be viewed in our safeguarding policy.

Most children generally enjoy safe and happy childhood experiences within their own family, but unfortunately for some this is not the case. During difficult family times everyone has a responsibility to protect children from future harm. Good child care begins even before a child is born.

St Peter's

At St Peter's, we expect all staff, governors, volunteers and visitors to share our commitment to safeguarding our children. We will ensure:

1. The welfare of the children remains paramount.

2. All children - whatever their age, culture, disability, gender, language, racial origin, religious beliefs and or sexual identity - have the right to be protected from harm. 

3. All suspicions and allegations of abuse will be taken seriously and responded to swiftly and appropriately. 

4. All staff and volunteers working at our school have a responsibility to report concerns to the Designated Lead for Safeguarding. 

Follow the link to our Safeguarding Policy

The school's Designated Safeguarding Leaders (DSLs) for Safeguarding and Child Protection are:

- Headteacher (Miss Brown - Lead)

- Deputy Headteacher (Mrs Tillotson - BacK-up)

- Head of Infants (Mrs Eastham - Back-up)

- Family Support Workers (Mrs Bolton and Mrs Burrows - Back-up)

- SENCo (Mrs Singlton - Back-up)

 

Our Governor for Child Protection is:

- Mrs Benney

 

The Designated Persons for Looked After Children (CLA/LAC) - Miss Brown and Mrs Bolton

 

Specific Leader with Safeguarding roles in school:

- CAF / TAF Leads - Mrs Bolton and Mrs Burrows

- EYFS Supervision Leader - Mrs Eastham

Harmful Sexual Behaviour and Child on Child Abuse Lead - Miss Brown

Online Safety Leads - Mrs Wilkes, Mrs Tillotson and Miss Brown

Safeguarding Children with SEND Lead - Mrs Singleton

Safer Recruitment - Miss Brown

Prevent Leads - Mrs Tillotson and Miss Brown

 

What we do: 

We listen to our children and take seriously what they tell us. All school staff are trained in safeguarding procedures, and children are made aware of the adults they can talk to if they have any concerns. Staff are trained to look out for signs of physical/ emotional abuse harm or neglect and are required to report these to the Designated Safeguarding Leader (DSL).

The procedures which we follow have been laid out by the Lancashire County Council Safeguarding Team and the school has adopted a comprehensive Child Protection and Safeguarding Policy. On occasions, our concern about a child may mean that we have to consult other agencies whom will share information, in line with school policy guidelines. We will ensure that all concerns are discussed with parent/carers first, before any referrals are made, unless we believe that such a move may be contrary to a child's welfare. 

 

Emergencies

If you think a child is in immediate danger

Don’t delay – call the police on 999

Children's Social Care

If you have any concerns regarding the welfare of a child, please call 0300 123 6720 or out of hours 0300 123 6722.

Concerns about an adult that works with children

If there are immediate safeguarding concerns to the child call 0300 123 6720 or out of hours 0300 123 6722.

If there are no immediate safeguarding concerns to the child inform senior management at the organisation where this person works.

 

What to do if you have concerns about a child:

Listed below are links to several websites which you can use to report any concerns you may have about a child:

https://www.gov.uk/report-child-abuse - This will provide you with links to the local council/police page for your area.

https://www.nspcc.org.uk/keeping-children-safe/reporting-abuse/report/report-abuse-online/

https://www.childline.org.uk/get-support/contacting-childline/

Operation Encompass

Operation Encompass is a unique Police and Education early intervention safeguarding partnership which ensures that a child's school is informed, prior to the start of the next school day, that there has been an incident of Domestic Abuse to which the child or young person has been exposed, and which might then have an impact on them in school the following day.

Each school is informed of all Domestic Abuse incidents, not just those where an offence can be identified or those which are graded as high risk. The partnership recognises that all incidents of Domestic Abuse can be harmful to children and young people.

This information will be shared throughout the year, including school holidays and the weekends. Information will only be shared with the school by the police where it is identified that a young person was present, witnessed or was involved in a domestic abuse incident.

A nominated member of staff, known as a Key Adult, has been trained to liaise with the police. At St Peter's C of E Primary School our Key Adult is Miss Brown. The key Adult will be able to use information that has been shared with them, in confidence, to ensure that the school makes provision for possible difficulties experienced by children or their families. The Key Adult will keep this information confidential, and will only share it on a need to know basis, for instance, to teaching staff for the child or young person. It will not be shared with other school students.

We are keen to offer the best support possible for our pupils and a recent review of Operation Encompass showed that it is beneficial and supportive for all those involved.

 

Monitoring, Filtering and Online Safeguarding

Protecting Pupils Online

We are committed to providing excellent services to schools and consider the e-safety of the young people using our services of paramount importance. We provide services to support schools in meeting their online safeguarding commitments, helping to ensure effective e-safety for young people.

Follow the link to our Online Safety Policy

Web Filtering

All our broadband connections include Web Filtering as standard. Based on Netsweeper, our service provides safe, filtered, and logged web access for both staff and students and is included in our Broadband and Online Services bundle:

• Education focused web filtering
• Meets the DfE recommendations for web filtering to protect pupils online and the standards for schools' web filtering set by the UK Safer Internet centre.
• Different filtering policies based on username, group membership or IP range.
• Local control to allow your school to manage which websites and categories of websites it wishes to allow or block.
• Monitoring and reporting on web access.
• Illegal content (as listed on the Internet Watch Foundation) remains blocked at all times and access cannot be over-ridden by school staff.
• Provides filtered web access to all devices in school.
• Includes access to a reporting tool, schools can configure and schedule their own reports of internet usage via a number of templates.

Useful E-Safety Websites

www.childnet.com - A non-profit organisation working directly with children, parents and teachers to ensure that the issues of online child protection and children's safe and positive use of the internet are addressed.

www.thinkuknow.co.uk - The Child Exploitation and Online Protection (CEOP) Centre has set up its own educational website which has been designed and written specifically for children, young people, teachers, parents and carers.

www.getsafeonline.org - A beginners guide to using the internet safely, including a quiz and some video tutorials about how to 'stay safe' online.

www.kidsmart.org.uk - Kidsmart is an award winning internet safety website for parents and those working with children. It has been developed by the children's internet charity Childnet International and has excellent information on many of the technologies used by children, with guidance on how to 'stay safe' online.

www.bullying.co.uk - One in five young people have experienced bullying by text message or via email. This website gives advice for children and parents on bullying.

www.vodafone.com/content/digital-parenting.html - Vodafone have developed this website in conjunction with mumsnet. It is very accessible and provides information and guidance to parents with understanding their child's digital world and get more involved. There is even an online test to see how much you know!

www.internetmatters.org - Lots of guidance and articles for parents about keeping their children safe online.

www.net-aware.org.uk - A guide to apps, games and social media sites for parents/carers to check official age ratings, safety features, content, privacy and location tracking and lots of useful tips to support keeping your child safe online.