Safeguarding

Safeguarding Commitment

This school takes seriously its responsibility to protect, safeguard and promote the welfare of the children and young people in its care.  

“The welfare of the pupil is paramount.”  (Children Act 1989.)

Our staff and governors are committed to safeguarding the pupils at this school and contribute to multi-agency working to keep pupils and students safe.

Working Together To Safeguard Children (December 2023) defines safeguarding as:

• providing help and support to meet the needs of children as soon as problems emerge;
• protecting children from maltreatment, whether that is within or outside the home, including online;
• preventing impairment of children’s mental and physical health or development;
• ensuring that children grow up in circumstances consistent with the provision of safe and effective care;
• promoting the upbringing of children with their birth parents, or otherwise their family network through a kinship care arrangement, whenever possible and where this is in the best interests of the children;
• taking action to enable all children to have the best outcomes in line with the outcomes set out in the Children’s Social Care National Framework.

All adults working in our school maintain an attitude of ' it could happen here'. We recognise that staff, because of their contact with and knowledge of children in their care, are well placed to identify abuse, neglect and exploitation and offer support to children in need.  

Our safeguarding and child protection policy can be found here

We will contact parents/carers should safeguarding concerns arise about their child, unless to do so would increase the risk of harm to the child. In this instance, we take further advice and guidance from our children’s social care team.

BKAT Safeguarding statement can be found here.

Contact details for Children’s Social Care

• Office hours - call 01793 464646,
• Non emergencies (out of hours) - call 101,
• Emergencies - call 999.

Record-keeping

We maintain contemporaneous records of all safeguarding and child protection concerns, actions and communications.

We work in line with the DfE statutory guidance ‘Keeping Children Safe In Education’ and follow the information-sharing guidance included in this document and in ‘Information-sharing : advice for practitioners providing safeguarding services to children, young people, parents and carers.’

Filtering and Monitoring

We take seriously our responsibility to safeguard and promote the welfare of children and provide them with a safe environment in which to learn.  We do all that we can to limit children’s exposure to risks from the school’s IT system.

As part of this process, we ensure our school has appropriate filtering and monitoring systems in place and that the effectiveness is reviewed regularly.

Our staff have an awareness and understanding of the provisions in place and know how to escalate concerns when identified.

Mrs Annette Shakespeare as Headteacher and Mrs Katie Palmer as governor are responsible for managing filtering and monitoring systems.

Provision for filtering and monitoring is reviewed annually.

Harmful and/or inappropriate content are blocked without unreasonably impacting teaching and learning.

Contact during partial school closure

During partial school closures/ lockdowns, teachers will invite parents and children to attend weekly Teams meetings where the child’s wellbeing is observed and discussed. If parents fail to attend the meetings, a phone call is made home by the class teacher and then the Headteacher if unsuccessful. If it is not possible to make contact or to see the child on the screen, the DSL will call the Safeguarding Hub on 01793 466903 and report concerns.

Our safeguarding team

Worried about a child?

If you have any concerns about the welfare of a child, please contact the school office to arrange to speak in confidence to a member of our safeguarding team. 

Mrs A Shakespeare - Designated Safeguarding Lead

Mrs L Murray - Deputy Designated Safeguarding Lead

Mr Marc Waterman - Chair of Governors

Gary Evans - CEO Blue Kite Academy Trust

Other useful contact numbers

NSPCC 0808 800 5000

Child Exploitation and Online Protection Command 0370 496 7622 – for reporting concerns about online abuse

Childline 0800 1111

Never keep concerns about a child's safety to yourself.

Operation Encompass

The school is taking part in a project that will run jointly between schools and Wiltshire Police: ENCOMPASS is the reporting to schools, by the next school day, when a child or young person has been affected by a domestic incident. ENCOMPASS will ensure that a member of the school staff, known as a Key Adult, will receive the information in confidence, while ensuring that the school is able to make provision for possible difficulties experienced by children, or their families, who have been involved in, affected by or exposed to a domestic abuse incident. We are keen to offer the best support possible to all of our pupils and we believe that this will help us to do so. 

For more information, please click here.

Online Safety

Click on the links below for hints, tips and advice on how to keep your child safe online.

• Advice on keeping children safe online - Swindon Borough Council Website
• https://nationalonlinesafety.com/ - National Online Safety
• Get Safe Online - UK based online safety advice

For the latest Keeping Children Safe in Education information, click here

Support for Mental Health

https://youngminds.org.uk/find-help/for-parents/

Domestic Abuse Helpline