Safeguarding and e-safety

Safeguarding

Sawtry Junior Academy is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people and expects all staff and volunteers to share in this commitment. All staff will be subject to an enhanced check with the Disclosure and Barring Service.

We do all we can to keep your children safe at Sawtry Junior Academy. We have a dedicated Inclusion Leader who is one of our Designated Persons.  We use robust systems to ensure that any concerns are fully followed up and acted upon. We ensure that relevant support is given to all children who need it to make sure they are happy and positive in school and beyond. We work in partnership with other agencies to effectively support our children and families.

Our safeguarding team

Jonathan Callender – Designated Safeguarding and Child Protection Lead (DSL), Prevent lead (SPOC), Domestic Abuse lead,

Julian Goodrum  – Designated Deputy Safeguarding and Child Protection lead (DDSL), Online and E-Safety Lead

Emily Warren – Designated officer for Child Protection and Educational Visits co-ordinator, Inclusion

Georgia Berry – Designated officer for Child Protection and Designated person for Children in care (CiC) and post-children in care (Post-CiC).

Rebecca Cruise – Designated officer for Child Protection, Domestic Abuse lead.

Under section 175 of the Education Act 2002 (as amended), *the Education (Independent School Standards) Regulations 2014, the Non-Maintained Special Schools (England) Regulations 2015, and the Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Act 2009 (as amended) to have arrangements in place to safeguard and promote the welfare of children.

At Sawtry Junior Academy we will endeavour to provide a safe and welcoming environment where children are respected and valued.

The school will therefore be alert to signs of abuse and neglect and will follow the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Safeguarding Children Partnership Board’s procedures to ensure that children receive appropriate and effective support and protection.

Parents/carers should know that the law requires all school staff to pass on information which gives rise to a concern about a child’s welfare, including risk from neglect, physical, emotional or sexual abuse. Parents/carers should know that records of safeguarding concerns may be kept about their child.  They should be informed that school staff will seek, in general, to discuss any concerns with them including referrals to other agencies.

Local procedures state that “Consent should always be sought from an adult with parental responsibility for the child/young person before passing information about them to Children’s Social Care, unless seeking consent would place the child at risk of significant harm or may lead to the loss of evidence for example destroying evidence of a crime or influencing a child about a disclosure made.”  This includes allowing them to share information without consent, if it is not possible to gain consent, if it cannot be reasonably expected that a professional gains consent, or if to gain consent would place a child at risk.

Where there is a need to share special category personal data, the Data Protection Act 2018 contains ‘safeguarding of children and individuals at risk’ as a processing condition that allows professionals to share information.

In accordance with legislation and local Information Sharing protocols, we will ensure that information is shared securely and sensitively.  Information will only be shared with other services where it is deemed necessary and proportionate to ensure that children and young people are safe and receive the right service. In all circumstances, the safety of the child will be the paramount concern.

Schools will contact Children’s Social Care when they have reasonable cause to suspect a child may be suffering or likely to suffer significant harm. Occasionally, concerns are passed on which are later shown to be unfounded.  Parents/carers will appreciate that the member of staff in the school with responsibility for child protection (known as the Designated Safeguarding Lead or Deputy Designated Safeguarding Lead) was carrying out their responsibilities in accordance with the law and acting in the best interests of all children.

Holding Power

Under Section 3 (5) of the Children Act 1989, any person who has care of a child “may….do what is reasonable in all the circumstances of the case for the purpose of safeguarding promoting the child’s welfare”.  This means that on rare occasions, a school may need to “hold” a child in school whilst Social Care and the Police investigate any concerns further.

The Prevent Duty

Sawtry Junior Academy recognises that it has a duty under Section 26 of the Counter-Terrorism and Security Act, 2015, in the exercise of its functions, to have due regard to the need to prevent people from being drawn into terrorism. Below is our Prevent duty risk assessment and action plan.

Support for families

If you are in need of support with regards to domestic violence. These organisations can provide guidance and support.

https://www.hestia.org/brightsky

E-safety

E-safety is an important part of keeping our children safe. E-safety is taught to all pupils explaining and demonstrating how to stay safe and behave appropriately online. We can only be successful in keeping children safe if we work with parents to ensure the e-safety message is consistent. It is important that parents know how to stay safe and speak to their children about how they can stay safe on line. Whilst no search engine is ever 100% safe there are some links below to some of the safer search engines. There are also links to sites which provide advice on social media to parents.

We had a presentation for parents on E-Safety from Jo Puckering of the ICT service. Her presentation can be found here.

Our acceptable use agreement helps inform and support children in safe use of the internet, it forms part of the Meridian Trust e-safety policy and all children and parents are asked to read and agree to it by signing it. A copy is attached here for your reference;

The links and guides below below are also very useful for parents and children

• Ceops
• Childline
• NSPCC share aware
• Internet matters