Safeguarding
The safety and wellbeing of all children and young people is of paramount importance. Parents and carers send their children to school each day with the expectation that the school provides a safe and secure environment in which the children can flourish. We have to ensure that this expectation becomes reality. In order to achieve this, a wide range of measures and additional policies are put into place.
These can be found detailed below.
The Governing Board keep these policies under regular review. They ensure the Head Teacher provides at least termly updates on safeguarding as part of the report to Governors. The Governing Board appoints a named Governor for Child Protection and Safeguarding.
Safeguarding children and young people is everyone's responsibility.
Should you have any concerns about a child you can use any of the contacts below:
Designated Safeguarding Officers
Designated Safeguarding Lead
Mrs Catherine Hodgson: head@richarddurnings.lancs.sch.uk
Deputy Designated Safeguarding Lead
Miss Nicola Foley: foley@richarddurnings.lancs.sch.uk
Designated Governor for Safeguarding and Protection
Mrs Judy Hales: jhales@richarddurnings.lancs.sch.uk
Local Authority Designated Officer (LADO)
Tim Booth/Shane Penn/Donna Green - 01772 536694
LADO.admin@lancashire.gov.uk (http://LADO.admin@lancashire.gov.uk)
Operation Encompass
Our school is part of a project, which is run between Lancashire Local Authority, schools and Lancashire Constabulary. The project, called Operation Encompass, has been designed to provide early reporting of any domestic abuse incidents that occur outside school, which might have an impact on a child in school. This is communicated through a secure email to school following an incident.
The project ensures that at least one member of the school staff, known as the Key Adult, is available to liaise with children's services and the police and to use the information that has been shared, in confidence.
In this way, we aim to support each child who has been involved in, or witnessed, a domestic abuse incident.
The Key Adult at Richard Durning's Endowed Primary School is Mrs Catherine Hodgson.
If she receives an Encompass notification she will make sure that a person the child trusts is available to help - if the child needs this. Most of the time this support is silent; keeping a careful eye on him or her and making sure the child has a calm school day. The confidential information is ordinarily not shared with all staff, just an agreement on how to help, if needed.
All schools have a duty to share any information with other organisations if they feel a child is at risk of being hurt. The Key Adult may contact other organisations.
The sharing of information from the police allows the school to be ready to help your child straight away, and it means that parents are aware that the Key Adult knows that something has happened. Parents can come and talk to our Key Adult. The Key Adult can point you towards other people that can help.
Our aim is to support children and their families.
Early Help Offer - Catherine Hodgson and Sarah Bowey
Our role in school is to provide support, advice and information to the families within our school community. We can help you with any worries you may have about your child’s education and wellbeing and we are also here as someone to talk to if you need support yourself. Any advice and support that we offer will be confidential, although concerns relating to the safeguarding of children will always be dealt with in accordance with school’s Safeguarding and Child Protection Policy. We may not have all the answers, but we will be able to point you in the direction of appropriate people to help in that case.
Support for families includes:
- Providing information and signposting to other services in your local area.
- Liaising with external services e.g. Children Social Care.
- Attendance and support at school.
- Support during appointments and in meetings.
- Help to complete paperwork and forms e.g. housing, school letters, grant applications and benefits.
- Advice and support to promote good attendance.
- Referrals to outside agencies e.g. Continence service, Learning Disability Team and Speech and Language Therapists.
- Guidance with access to training and parent workshops in school.
- Emotional support for parents
- Lead on EHA and TAF's.
- Give parents access to Disability events and training events.
- Support for transitioning pupils.
Mrs Hodgson's email address is head@richarddurnings.lancs.sch.uk
Telephone: 01257 462968
Early Help - working with you and your family
What is early help?
Every family goes through challenging times at some point. Early help means working with you and your family so that small problems don’t become big problems. To offer a blanket of support for families to succeed.
Early help is for everybody, for families with children and young people of any age. And it’s your choice whether to have it or not.
Why would I want early help?
There are lots of reasons why people look for early help. It could be that you’re worried about your child’s health, development or behaviour, or how they’re doing at school. It may be that you’re worried about money or housing and how that is affecting your family. Maybe your child or family is affected by domestic abuse, drugs, alcohol, or crime. Perhaps your child is a carer for their SEND sibling, or maybe you’ve had a bereavement in the family that’s made life a challenge.
Where can I get early help?
If you feel you and your family might need support to solve some problems, please do not hesitate to contact us.
What will happen when I ask for early help?
We will give you a call to either complete a home visit or you could come into school and we will talk about the problems you’re experiencing. We will ask what help and support you think you might need. This is called an Early Help Assessment.
Early help assessment is nothing to be worried about. It’s just a conversation to work out how to help you determine what it is you feel you need support with and how this can be done. You can talk about things that are going well and things that you’re proud of as well as things that you’re finding a challenge.
We will also discuss your child or children in your family to make sure they understand how they are feeling and anything they think they might want some help with.
What happens next will be different for every family. If an Early Help assessment is carried out and actions are identified we will then call Team Around the Family (TAF) meetings. Again this is nothing to be worried about. It just ensures we have a regular meeting with all professionals involved to get the best outcome for the family. You have control over what happens next and can say what you want.
All of this is consent based. IF CONSENT IS WITHDRAWN THEN THE PROCESS STOPS!
If you decide you’d like some help, the person you talked with will ask if they can share details of your conversation. You need to be happy with this and give your permission. This is to make sure the people who will be supporting you are able to do a good job for you and understand the journey you and your family have been on.
Sharing information
There may be times when the person you talked to has to share information. This includes:
- if they think a child is at risk of harm
- if they think an adult is at risk of harm
- if they think the information could help prevent or detect a serious crime.
Children Social care won’t get involved unless one of these things happens, or unless the circumstances in your family change and become more serious.
Remember, it’s your choice to have Early Help. If you have any questions please contact me.
Childline
Every year all children take part in Speak Out, Stay Safe work with the NSPCC and our school staff.
Get help and advice on a wide range of issues
Childline is a private and confidential service for children and any young person up to the age of nineteen. You can contact a Childline counsellor about anything, no problem is too big or too small.
CALL FREE on 0800 1111
https://childline.org.uk
Childline 0800 1111
Safeguarding Policies
Operation Encompass
Advice for parents: keeping your child safe online
Creating safe and healthy online habits
Reporting harmful content
Cyber security buzz words
Five ways to keep children safe whilst gaming online
How to use smart speakers safely
A guide to group chats
A guide to virtual friendships
A guide to popular games
A guide to popular online platforms
Different types of Social media explained: risks and top tips
Other useful links
Prevent Strategy - Parent Information
What is the Prevent strategy ?
Prevent is a government strategy designed to stop people becoming terrorists or supporting terrorist or extremist causes.
The Prevent strategy covers all types of terrorism and extremism, including the extreme right wing, violent Islamist groups and other causes.
How does the Prevent strategy apply to schools?
From July 2015 all schools (as well as other organisations) have a duty to safeguard children from radicalisation and extremism.
This means we have a responsibility to protect children from extremist and violent views the same way we protect them from drugs or gang violence.
Importantly, we can provide a safe place for pupils to discuss these issues so they better understand how to protect themselves.
What does this mean in practice?
Many of the things we already do in school to help children become positive, happy members of society also contribute to the Prevent strategy.
These include:
· Exploring other cultures and religions and promoting diversity.
· Challenging prejudices and racist comments
· Developing critical thinking skills and a strong, positive self -identity.
· Promoting the spiritual, moral, social and cultural development of pupils, as well as British values such as democracy
We will also protect children from the risk of radicalisation, for example by using filters on the internet to make sure they can’t access extremist and terrorist material, or by vetting visitors who come into schools.
Different schools will carry out the Prevent duty in different ways, depending on the age of the children and the needs of the community.
Frequently Asked Questions
How does Prevent relate to British values?
Schools have been required to promote British values since 2014, and this will continue to be part of our response to the Prevent strategy.
British values include:
· Democracy
· The rule of law
· Individual liberty and mutual respect
· Tolerance of different faiths and beliefs.
Isn’t my child too young to learn about extremism?
The Prevent strategy is not just about discussing extremism itself, which many not be appropriate for younger children. It is also about teaching children values such as tolerance and mutual respect.
Is extremism really a risk in our area?
Extremism can take many forms, including political, religious and misogynistic extremism, Some of these may be a bigger threat in our area than others.
We will give children the skills to protect them from any extremist views they may encounter.
KEY TERMS
Extremism - vocal or active opposition to fundamental British values such as democracy, the rule of law and tolerance of different faiths and beliefs.
Ideology - a set of beliefs
Terrorism - a violent action against people or property, designed to create fear and advance a political, religious or ideological cause.
Radicalisation - the process by which a person comes to support extremism and terrorism.
Where to go for more information?
Contact the school
If you have any questions or concerns about the Prevent strategy and what it means for your child please do not hesitate to contact the school.
You will find more information about spiritual, moral, social and cultural development and British values on our website.
External Sources
The following sources may also be useful for further information:
Frequently asked questions, Prevent for schools http://www.preventforschools.org/?category_id=38
What is Prevent? Let’s Talk About It http://www.ltai.info/what-is-prevent/
Prevent duty guidance: for England and Wales, HM Government