Safeguarding

What is Safeguarding?

Safeguarding is the action taken to promote the welfare of children and protect them from harm. Safeguarding means protecting children from abuse, preventing harm and ensuring pupils grow up in a safe place. It is our job to provide a safe environment for children to learn in. We want to ensure that children remain safe at home as well as at school. We think it is important for our children and families to know where to get help if they are worried or unhappy about something. All children have the right to be protected from harm. Our aim is to work in partnership to ensure that all children at school are safe and happy.

Schools play in essential role in protecting children from abuse as we are in regular contact with children and are therefore able to identify signs that could indicate abuse and neglect. We have a duty of care to report information to Children’s Service if we think a child is at risk of harm.

Dean Trust Ardwick safeguards children and young people by:

• Creating safe environments through robust practices
• Train staff regularly to recognise and identify signs that a child may be at risk and know how to respond to these
• Ensure that all adults who work with children, including volunteers are DBS Checked.
• Secure the school site via the use of key fobs and magnetic doors
• Work alongside Manchester Safeguarding partnerships such as the police, health and children’s services
• Staff wear Hi-Viz jackets on duty before, during and afterschool so that we are easily visible
• Staff radios
• Monitor pupil’s internet use
• Educate pupils via PSHE lessons, external providers and assemblies
• Provide a range of healthy food

How we support parents and carers to ensure the safety of their children:

• Coffee mornings to offer advice, guidance and support on various topics
• Telephone calls home
• Parental meetings and sign posts to external services if necessary
• English lessons
• Provide key safeguarding information handouts
• Community events

How can you get in touch if you have a concern?

If you have any concerns about a child and wish to report it you can do this via the NSPCC link here: www.nspcc.org.uk/keeping-children-safe/reporting-abuse/report

If you are worried about a child at school, we welcome information being shared with us through the completion of a pink coloured welfare from the school reception area. You can then post this into the post-box and a member of the welfare team will be in touch.

You can also email the designated safeguarding team at the following address: safeguarding@deantrustardwick.co.uk

We are a telling school, so If your child would like to raise a concern, they can do so to any member of staff in school. We do also provide the anonymous text service of 6006 which a child in school can contact and raise any concerns. Pupils also have access to yellow reporting forms where they can if they need to, report any concerns about themselves or others anonymously via the use of these and posting them in the letter boxes around school.

Finally, you can call the school telephone number and ask to speak to a member of the welfare team.

Prevent

Prevent Duty Guidance was published by the government under Section 26 of the 2015 Counter Terrorism and Security Act. It places a duty on “specified authorities” to have “due regard to the need to prevent people from being drawn into terrorism”. These authorities include schools, registered childcare providers and further education colleges.

Prevent is about safeguarding our children from all forms of extremism.  Prevent safeguards people who are vulnerable to radicalisation in a similar way to safeguarding processes designed to protect people from gangs, drug abuse, and physical and sexual abuse.

Given the rise of extremist voices through areas such as social media, Prevent is embedded as part of our school’s wider safeguarding policies. The Prevent duty is not about spying on pupils or intruding unnecessarily into their families. It’s about making sure we can identify worrying behaviour and refer those students who may be at risk of radicalisation for appropriate support. For more information on how you can talk to your child about extremism and radicalisation clink on this link: educateagainsthate.com/parents

E-Safety

E-safety is about the protection of children whilst they are using the internet and digital technologies. This includes: risk-taking and inappropriate behaviour by children and young people; risks and inappropriate behaviour by others to children and young people; illegal activity. Cyberbullying is the use of Information Communication Technology (ICT), particularly mobile phones and the Internet to deliberately upset someone else. We encourage pupils to ‘Stop, Speak and Support’ others when it comes to cyberbullying.

If you have any concerns regarding E-safety, cyberbullying or online safety then please find further information, support and guidance at Childnet.com