At EWPA, we are committed to providing a safe and secure environment for our whole school community - children, families, staff and visitors. All members of staff have read part 1 of the DFE guidance Keeping Children Safe in Education (KCSiE)  and fully understand their role in keeping children safe.

In our school we aim to safeguard and promote the welfare of our children through our rigorous safeguarding procedures and robust record keeping systems alongside early intervention and support.

 

What is safeguarding?

All members of staff, parents/carers and visitors who come on to our school premises have a duty of care towards the welfare and safety of the children who attend our school. This is called Safeguarding.

 

Every child can potentially be hurt, put at risk from harm or abused regardless of their age, gender, religion, ethnicity or disability.

 

Safeguarding means that:

• Children are protected from mistreatment
• A child’s health or development is protected
• Children grow up with safe and effective care
• Action is taken to ensure the best outcomes for all children

 

Safeguarding is the action we take to promote the welfare of children in our care and to protect them from harm.

 

Everybody's Responsibility:

Keeping children safe is the responsibility of the whole school community, this means even those visiting the school have a responsibility to report instances of actual or suspected abuse or neglect to the Designated Safeguarding Leads (DSL’s).

 

The Designated Safeguarding Leads in this setting are: 

 

• Designated Safeguarding Lead: Mrs C. Daly
• Deputy Designated Safeguarding Leads - Mrs K Johnson; Mrs J Whiley & Mrs Maureen Moore
• Safeguarding Governor - Mr M. Jeffers

 

The DSL’s take lead responsibility for safeguarding and children protection (this includes online safety) and are available to provide advice and support to other staff on child welfare and child protection matters. DSL’s along with deputy DSL's take part in strategy discussions, interagency meetings, Core Groups and Child Protection Conferences and contribute to the assessment of children by providing reports, making referrals and attending meetings.

 

Confidentiality: 

Information from parents about possible child abuse cannot be kept confidential. Information and records about children will be given only to those people who need it to keep a child safe and will be kept strictly confidential by them.

 

The school adheres to a strict whistle blowing policy which applies to all staff members, Governors and volunteers in school. It outlines who and where report concerns about staff conduct relating to the safeguarding of children to.

 

 

 

 

 

For further information about our Safeguarding policies, please see our Policy Page

Peer on Peer Sexual abuse and/or harassment

This helpline provides both children and adults who are potential victims of sexual abuse in schools with the appropriate support and advice. This includes how to contact the police and report crimes if they wish. The helpline also provides support to parents and professionals. See section 8 page 21 in our safeguarding policy for our procedures. 

Peer on peer sexual abuse and harassment is not acceptable and not tolerated. Sexual harassment refers to unwanted conduct of a sexual nature that occurs online or offline. Sexual harassment violates a pupil’s dignity and makes them feel intimidated, degraded or humiliated, and can create a hostile, sexualised or offensive environment. If left unchallenged, sexual harassment can create an atmosphere that normalises inappropriate behaviour and may lead to sexual violence.

Sexual harassment could include:

• Sexual comments.
• Sexual “jokes” and taunting.
• Physical behaviour, such as deliberately brushing against another pupil
• Online sexual harassment, including non-consensual sharing of images and videos and consensual sharing of sexual images and videos (often known as sexting), inappropriate comments on social media, exploitation, coercion and threats 

 

Domestic abuse - Operation Encompass

At EWPA we are working in partnership with the Metropolitan Police and Children’s Services to identify and provide appropriate support to pupils who have experienced domestic incidents; this scheme is called Operation Encompass.

The purpose of Operation Encompass is to safeguard and support children and young people who have been involved in, or witness to a domestic incident. Domestic abuse impacts on children in a number of ways. Children are at increased risk of physical injury during an incident, either by accident or because they attempt to intervene. Even when not directly injured, children are greatly distressed by witnessing the physical and emotional suffering of a parent.

To find out more about what is considered to be a domestic incident please take a look at the guidance from the Met Police on their website: https://www.met.police.uk/advice/advice-and-information/daa/domestic-abuse/what-is-domestic-abuse/

Operation Encompass has been created to highlight this situation. It is the implementation of key partnership working between the police and schools. The aim of sharing information with local schools is to allow key adults i.e. DSL or Deputy DSL the opportunity of engaging with the child and to provide access to support that allows them to remain in a safe but secure familiar environment. 

In order to achieve this, the Multi-Agency Safeguarding Hub (MASH) will notify us of all domestic incidents where one or more of our pupils has been present, to the Designated Safeguarding Lead(s) (DSL) via an online notification system.  On receipt of any information, the DSL's will decide on the appropriate support the child requires, this should be covert dependent on the needs and wishes of the child.  All information sharing and resulting actions will be undertaken in accordance with the Metropolitan Police and MASH Encompass Protocol Data Sharing Agreement.  We will record this information and store this information in accordance with the record keeping procedures outlined in this policy.

 

Children Missing from School

If a child goes missing from education they could be at risk of significant harm.

Concerns could be raised because

• Child has failed to attend school for a number of days without good reason

• There has been no contact from the parents giving reasons for the absence

• There is unsubstantiated contact from an “unknown adult” that the child has left the school

• There are information or “rumours” from other children that the child has left

• Information has been found on social media by other children that leads school staff to believe that the child has left

 

The Protocol is:

1. The school Attendance Advisory Officer will be contacted and asked to make a home address visit to obtain information.

2. The School Attendance Advisory Officer will contact the school at the earliest opportunity to advise staff of the result of the enquiries

3. If it is not possible to speak to the person named as a contact, a letter or e-mail will be sent to that person asking for information about the missing child and their whereabouts

If no contact is made or information gained then:

4. School will contact the Local Authority missing child service and advise them that the child is no longer attending, detailing the enquiries that have been made to trace them and providing any information that has been obtained.

Further information can be found here.

 

 

 

Disciplining Your Child Leaflet

Use of Physical Force

Statement on the use of physical force and the school’s statutory duty 

Parents/carers must understand that they are responsible for disciplining their children or those under their care when they are not in school. They must fully understand and be aware that the use of physical force in disciplining their children or those under their care may be illegal in certain circumstances. This may include where an implement has been used, where the use of that force has resulted in injury and the use of prolonged physical stress positions (this is where children are placed in a position of discomfort for a long period of time). Parents/carers must understand that in these circumstances the school has a statutory duty to report such incidents to Children’s Social Care and that the police may be asked to investigate. 

Prevent Risk Assessment – November 2018

 

Everyone who comes into contact with children and their families has a role to play in safeguarding children.

 

Schools have a duty of care to their pupils and staff which includes safeguarding them from the risk of being drawn into terrorism - this includes not just violent extremism but also non-violent extremism, which can create an atmosphere conducive to terrorism and can popularise views which terrorists exploit.

 

Schools should be safe spaces in which children and young people can understand and discuss sensitive topics, including terrorism and the extremist ideas that are part of the terrorist ideology and learn how to challenge these ideas. School staff are particularly important as they are in a position to identify concerns early and provide help for children, to prevent concerns from escalating.

 

Schools and their staff form part of the wider safeguarding system for children. This system is described in statutory guidance Working Together to Safeguard Children and Keeping Children Safe in Education (Sept 2018).

 

Schools work together with social care, the police, health services and other services to promote the welfare of children and protect them from harm. Radicalisation is listed as a specific safeguarding issue within statutory guidance and is addressed within the Government Prevent Strategy.

 

The Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015 places a duty on Schools to have due regard to the need to prevent people from being drawn into terrorism.

 

The Prevent Strategy has three main objectives:

 

· Respond to the ideological challenge of terrorism & the threat we face from those who promote it;

· Prevent people from being drawn into terrorism and ensure that they are given appropriate advice and support;

· Work with sectors and institutions where there are risks of radicalisation which we need to address.

 

Please see our Safeguarding and Child Protection Policy and Prevent Risk Assessment for further information.

IT & Security Systems

Safeguarding has always been a priority for us, but more recently, safeguarding policies have to incorporate the schools fast evolving IT systems. Our Internet provider, MLL Telecoms, provides both centrally and locally controlled filtering policies and reporting systems which are regularly updated and are Prevent Duty compliant. We have physical safeguarding mechanisms in placing including CCTV, door access security, intercom entry and visitor management.

Female Genital Mutilation

East Wickham Primary Academy has robust and rigorous safeguarding procedures.

Female Genital Mutilation is a form of child abuse and as such is dealt with under the schools safeguarding and child protection policy.

 

The school uses the World Health Organisation definition as written below.

“FGM is considered as child abuse in the UK and a grave violation of the human rights of girls and women. In all circumstances where FGM is practised on a child it is a violation of the child’s right to life, their right to their bodily integrity, as well as their right to health. The UK Government has signed a number of international human rights laws against FGM, including the Convention on the Rights of the Child.”

 

The school has taken information from several documents to write a statement. These include, the Government Home Office guidelines and the Ofsted guidelines for “Inspecting Safeguarding”. The UK Government has written advice and guidance on FGM. Designated senior staff for child protection are aware of the guidance that is available in respect of FGM, and are vigilant to the risk of it being practised.

Updating Home Contact Information

Please ensure that you update the school office on any changes to your personal details including your address, telephone numbers and emergency contacts. This is to ensure that our records are kept up-to-date and to allow us to contact you urgently if your child is taken ill or has an accident.