Safeguarding

All things Safeguarding…

Child Protection, Reporting a Concern, Operation Encompass, Online Safety, Sexual behaviours & PREVENT

The safety of children at Georgeham is of paramount importance to us. We are committed to ensuring that all members of our school community will thrive in a safe and happy learning environment.

Keeping your child safe means:

• The health and safety of all children
• Making sure that the adults who work here have undergone safety and security checks
• Protecting children from deliberate harm
• Being an anti-bullying school
• Being proactive against racist behaviour
• Being proactive against attempts to indoctrinate children in to any form of extremism
• Protecting our children from harassment and discrimination
• A positive approach to behaviour management
• Meeting the needs of children with medical conditions
• Providing first aid
• Protecting children from drug and substance abuse
• Children enjoying safe educational visits
• Caring for children’s personal needs
• Keeping children safe when using the internet and making sure they are aware of online bullying.
• Making sure our school is secure and safe
• Being a ‘listening school’
• Ensuring they know who to go in school if they have a problem

All our staff and governors have had specific training and are proficient in all aspects of Child Protection. We also have a designated child protection officer and two deputies. They are all fully trained in current child protection practices and are responsible for child protection throughout the school.

Our school environment is regularly monitored to ensure the right balance between managed risk and safety. Through our PSHE programme, we teach the children about safety and how to recognise the ‘danger-signs’ of feeling unsafe. We make sure that all children know and can talk about the people in school they can turn to if they feel unsafe.

We work closely with outside agencies whenever there are concerns and we follow strict protocols for reporting Safeguarding issues. We are legally bound to refer Child Protection concerns to Devon’s Safeguarding Hub / Social Care. We may inform parents of our concerns before we make phone calls, however there are occasions when a referral has to be made without informing the family beforehand.

The Designated Safeguarding staff at school are: Kevin Fry, Emma Hill and Lucy Rinvolucri.

It is crucial that children learn to balance the benefits offered by technology with a critical awareness of their own and other’s online behaviour, and develop effective strategies for staying safe and making a positive contribution online, this forms an important part of our curriculum.

Acceptable User Agreement
Digital technology has become integral to our lives and is used throughout school in many elements of a child’s education. We establish ground rules so that everyone is aware of their responsibilites and to ensure everyone’s safety. We use Acceptable Use Agreements to ensure that everyone is aware of their responsibilities in keeping themselves and others safe. Please click below to see what these are.

• Younger pupils – EYFS and KS1 – click to view
• Older pupils – KS2 (juniors) – click to view
• Parents and Carers – click to view
• Schools Staff and Volunteers – click to view

Helping our pupils understand how to stay safe online forms part of our safeguarding obligation towards children. Children are expected to follow our SMART rules in school, at home and whilst mobile to make sure they stay safe online.

Keep Smart!

S. Keep Safe… Don’t give out personal information.
M. Don’t Meet Up…Never meet up with an online friend.
A. Accepting things… Don’t open mail, texts or photos from people you don’t know.
R. Reliable… Beware – people might not be who they say they are.
T. Tell Someone… Always tell an adult if you feel uncomfortable or worried.

We’ve provided some links below to websites and resources which we think are useful to parents when navigating the wide world of e-safety and all that it means in today’s online world.

Below are a series of links to online resources you may find useful as parents:

• CEOP’s Think U know
• CEOP’s Safety Centre
• UK Safer Internet Centre
• National Online Safety
• Childnet International
• Kidsmart
• Google’s Safety Center
• Get Safe Online
• Parents – internet matters

Sexual Behaviour

Knowing how to recognise and respond to age appropriate behaviours in children helps to support the development of healthy sexual behaviour and protect children from harm or abuse.

The best thing we can do here is to direct you to Parents Protect, a website full of resources on many and various aspects, including what’s considered to be normal behaviour, sexting and social networking.

You may want to click through to these helpful documents that we’ve downloaded for you…

• Traffic Light tool for children aged under 5
• Traffic Light tool for children aged 5-11
• Family Safety leaflet and plan

Prevent Duty…

The Prevent duty states that all schools have to have due regard to preventing people being drawn into terrorism.

In order to protect our children we, and you, must be alert to any reason for concern in the child’s life at home or elsewhere. This includes an awareness of the expression of extremist views. The government has defined extremism in the Prevent strategy as: “vocal or active opposition to fundamental British Values, including democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty and mutual respect and tolerance of different faiths and beliefs.”

British Values are a set of four values introduced to help keep children safe and promote their welfare and they are firmly embedded in the work that we carry out at school.

• Democracy: making decisions together, for example giving opportunities to develop enquiring minds in an atmosphere where questions are valued.
• Rule of law: understanding that rules matter, as cited in our PSHE (Personal, Social, Health and Emotional) and our SMSC (Spiritual, Moral, Social and Cultural) programmes of study, and also our SEAL (Social and Emotional Aspects of Learning) programme, that all helps our children to understand and create rules and codes of behaviour.
• Individual liberty: freedom for all, for example reflecting on their differences and understanding that we are free to have opinions that may be different to others.
• Mutual respect and tolerance: treat others as you want to be treated, for example sharing and respecting other’s opinions.

This prevention forms part of our safeguarding of the children in our school and our school policy on safeguarding can be found on our Policies and Useful Documents page.

You can also find advice on the Devon and Cornwall Police website

If you would like to discuss any of this, please contact the school and arrange a conversation with Mr Fry