At Settrington School, our Designated safeguarding Lead is Caryl Shephard.
Our Deputy Designated Safeguarding Lead is Kate Hind.
Our SENCO is Kate Hind.
Settrington C.E Primary School is committed to ensuring the welfare and safety of all children in school and expects all staff and volunteers to share this commitment. We follow the North Yorkshire Safeguarding Children Partnership procedures. Every person who works with our children understands their responsibility in keeping children safe and should be confident in how they will do that.
What is safeguarding?
Safeguarding means:
- protecting children from abuse and maltreatment
- preventing harm to children’s health or development
- ensuring children grow up with the provision of safe and effective care
- taking action to enable all children and young people to have the best outcomes.
Child protection is part of the safeguarding process. It focuses on protecting individual children identified as suffering or likely to suffer significant harm. This includes child protection procedures which detail how to respond to concerns about a child.
Sometimes we may need to share information and work in partnership with other agencies when there are concerns about a child’s welfare. We will always ensure that our concerns about our pupils are discussed with their parents/carers first unless we have reason to believe that this is not in the child’s best interests or a child is at significant risk or in immediate danger.
We have several policies and procedures in place that contribute to our safeguarding commitment, including our Child Protection Policy:
This can be viewed in the policies section of our website.
If you have a concern about a child in school, you can speak with the Designated Safeguarding Lead, Caryl Shephard or the Deputy Designated Safeguarding Lead, Kate Hind on 01944 768238. In their absence, you can also speak to the Chair of Governors (Safeguarding Governor) Sue Blagen on cofg@settrington.n-yorks.sch.uk or 07899 972056
Alternatively, you can ring the North Yorkshire Safeguarding Children Partnership on 01609 780780. Should your call be outside of business hours (Monday – Friday / 9am-5pm) please still call 01609 780780 to speak to the Emergency Duty Team.
PREVENT
Protecting your children from radicalisation and extremism is similar to protecting them from the other harms you may be more familiar with, such as drugs, gangs and sexual exploitation.
For ways to keep your child safe, including from the dangers of radicalisation, click on the link for the “educate against hate” website.
Keeping Children Safe in Education
OPERATION ENCOMPASS
Our school is currently part of Operation Encompass. The purpose of this initiative is to safeguard and support children and young people who have been present, witnessed or been involved in a domestic abuse incident.
Following such an incident, children will often arrive at school distressed, upset and unprepared. Operation Encompass aims to ensure that nominated staff are made aware of the incident early enough to support children and young people in a way that means they feel safe and included.
All schools will have a nominated key adult, in our case this is Mrs Shephard. Each morning North Yorkshire Police will review all reported domestic abuse records. Where recorded incidents show children between the ages of four and eighteen years of age were present, or witnessed or were involved in such abuse, the key adult in the school the child attends will be contacted and the information shared.
The staff working with those pupils will then be in an informed position to support them in a way that is right for that particular child if it is felt appropriate to do so.
ON-LINE SAFETY
We all want our children to live in a safe and loving environment so that they can grow up to become happy, confident adults. You will already know that your children can be vulnerable to risks both inside and outside the home and will have taken steps to protect them so they can grow, learn and develop to their fullest potential.
It is very important to stay safe online, just like you would in the real world. In school we have regular lessons about e-safety and children are also reminded of their learning by posters around schools.
Remember:
S – stay safe, don’t give out personal information
M – meet up, don’t meet up with anyone you meet online
A – accepting files, don’t accept files from people you don’t know
R – reliable, can you trust what someone is telling you?
T – tell someone, if you are at all worried about something you have seen online tell someone.
Further information and contacts:
National Online Safety
To create your free Parent/Carer account, please follow https://nationalonlinesafety.com/enrol/upper-wharfedale-primary-federation and complete your details.
Taming Gaming
Family Video Game Database – Guides, Ratings and Suggestions: www.taminggaming.com
Report Harmful Content www.reportharmfulcontent.com
Worried about a child? Make a referral at https://www.safeguardingchildren.co.uk/about-us/worried-about-a-child/
North Yorkshire ‘Be Aware’ child exploitation website NYCC Be Aware
THINKUKNOW website
NYSCB www.safeguardingchildren.co.uk
NSPCC www.nspcc.org.uk
CEOP https://www.thinkuknow.co.uk/parents/
Parents Protect www.parentsprotect.co.uk
or download this useful document Parental Guidance for Monitoring Children’s use of Social media from UKCCIS
Report it – CEOP: The Child Exploitation and Online Protection Command
Has someone done something online that has made you or a child or young person you know, feel worried or unsafe?
Make a report to one of CEOP’s experienced Child Protection Advisors: ceop.police.uk/safety-centre
Government guidance for parents
E-safety is an integral part of children’s education in today’s digital world and is embedded in their learning at school. We also want to help our parents and children improve their own understanding of e-safety issues so they can learn to use the internet and all digital media in a safe and secure way.
DfE advice for parents on cyberbullying
At School
As part of your child’s curriculum and the development of computer skills, we provide access to the internet only in teacher supervised lessons. We strongly believe that the use of the world wide web is hugely worthwhile and an essential tool for children as they grow up in the modern world. But because there are always concerns about children having access to undesirable materials, we have taken positive steps to deal with this risk in school. Our school internet access provider operates a filtering system that restricts access to inappropriate materials.
At the start of the school year, each class discusses how we can all stay safe online and the dangers we may face on the internet. We then ask every child in KS2 to sign an Acceptable Use Agreement so that we know they have read and understood our school’s rules on staying safe. We also have an Acceptable Use Agreement for our younger children.
FOR CHILDREN
OWN IT
A place to help you boss your life online – questions, answers and tools to help you make the most of your time online bbc.com/ownit
CHILDLINE – 08001111
Childline is here to help anyone under 19 in the UK with any issue they’re going through. You can talk about anything. Whether it’s something big or small, our trained counsellors are here to support you. Childline is free, confidential and available any time, day or night: childline.org.uk
JUST A JOKE?
Plans, quick activities, a quiz and guide designed to explore problematic online sexual behaviour with 9-12 year olds: childnet.com/resources/just-a-joke
FOR PARENTS
INTERNET MATTERS internetmatters.org
PARENT ZONE parentzone.org.uk
At Home
As a parent you’ll know how important the internet is to children – they use it to learn, play, socialise and express themselves. It’s a highly creative place of amazing opportunities. But the technology children use every day can seem a bit daunting and you might worry about the risks your child can face online – such as bullying, contact from strangers or the possibility of them seeing illegal or inappropriate content.
Talking to your child about how they use the internet will help you start to protect your children online and decrease the risks they face. Here are some conversation starter ideas from childnet.com
- Ask your children to tell you about the sites they like to visit and what they enjoy doing online.
- Ask them about how they stay safe online. What tips do they have for you, and where did they learn them? What is OK and not OK to share?
- Ask them if they know where to go for help, where to find the safety advice, privacy settings and how to report or block on the services they use.
- Encourage them to help. Perhaps they can show you how to do something better online or they might have a friend who would benefit from their help and support.
- Think about how you use the internet as a family. What could you do to get more out of the internet together and further enjoy your lives online
- It’s important to remember that the legal age to have an account on most social media – Instagram, Facebook, Youtube, Snapchat – is 13 years old.
PARENT RESOURCES
saferinternet.org.uk/advice-centre/parents-and-carers
nspcc.org.uk/keeping-children-safe/online-safety