Safeguarding

Safeguarding is the action that is taken to promote the welfare of children and protect them from harm. 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. Safeguarding is everyone’s responsibility and every child has the right to be safe.

All staff maintain an attitude of ‘it could happen here’.

All staff, governors and volunteers recognise their moral and statutory responsibility to safeguard and promote the welfare of all pupils and we endeavour to provide a safe and welcoming environment where children are respected and valued. We are all alert to the signs of neglect and abuse and follow strict procedures to ensure all children receive effective support, protection and justice.  This also includes knowledge in the process for allegations against professionals.

What can I do if I am concerned about a child? 

If you have any concerns about a child please contact any member of staff.

Alternatively you can contact:

• www.childline.org.uk telephone 0800 11 11
• Children’s services (One call) can be contacted 24 hours a day by any member of the community on 01670 536 400
• If you have a concern about a member of staff or an adult who works with children please contact the Local Authority Designated Officer (LADO) Louise Prudhoe. 

Call: 01670 623979 (Monday to Thursday 08:30-17:00, Friday 08:30-16:30) or 

01670 536400 (Out of hours) or email: LADO@northumberland.gov.uk

• In an emergency do not hesitate to call the police on 999. 

Further safeguarding information for parents and carers, including links to a range of helpful websites, is available on the Northumberland website here. We send out safeguarding bulletins to all parents and carers in our weekly newsletter with helpful tips and guidance from National Online Safety to keep you up to date.

We also run parent/carer sessions throughout the school year to support with online safety and safeguarding.

All of our policies and procedures relating to safeguarding are available here.

Safeguarding in the Curriculum

We have comprehensively mapped safeguarding across the curriculum you can view this in our curriculum section. 

Our school is part of Operation Encompass.

Operation Encompass is a national police and education early intervention safeguarding partnership which supports children and young people who experience Domestic Violence and Abuse. This is in place in every police force in England and Wales.

Children were recognised as victims of domestic abuse in their own right in the 2021 Domestic Abuse Act.

Operation Encompass means that the police will share information with our school about all police attended Domestic Abuse incidents which involve any of our children PRIOR to the start of the next school day. The Operation Encompass information is stored in line with all other confidential safeguarding and child protection information.

As a staff we have discussed how we can support our children who are experiencing Domestic Violence and Abuse on a day-to-day basis and particularly following the Operation Encompass notification.

The Safeguarding Governor will report on Operation Encompass in the termly report to Governors. All information is anonymised for these reports.

Our aim is to ensure that children who have experienced a domestic incident are well supported in school, and that we also support the family where appropriate.

Online Safety

As part of our school curriculum we teach children how to stay safe online. This teaching comes in many forms, from PSHE days focussed on e-safety, to assemblies, class discussions and e-safety teaching in ICT lessons.

For more information on E-safety and Safeguarding and how to keep your children safe online when they are at home please follow the link to the CEOP (Child Exploitation and Online Protection) website. CEOP provides lots of information to support parents and carers to keep children safe online. You are also able to report concerns directly to CEOP. Please see the links for these below.

The Think U Know website has helpful tips to support parents and carers with new technology and mobile phone safety. There is a link to this below.

CEOP Website

CEOP YouTube Video

Report a CEOP Concern

Think U Know Website

If you would like to discuss any worries please contact the school family team who can provide further guidance and information.