CHILD PROTECTION/SAFEGUARDING

Our school believes that it is always unacceptable for a child to experience abuse of any kind. We recognise our responsibility to safeguard the welfare of all children.  We will provide staff and volunteers with guidance to follow when they suspect a child may be experiencing abuse or be at risk of harm. We will work co-operatively with other agencies to safeguard and promote the welfare of children. We will ensure that our concerns about our pupils are discussed with parents/carers first - unless we have reason to believe that such a move would be contrary to the child’s welfare.

We work together with the Safeguarding Team from Church Hill Middle School.

The Designated Safeguarding Lead for child protection is Deena Frost at Abbeywood and David Dathan at Church Hill. 

The Deputy Designated Persons for child protection are Rachel Whiting, Sarah Mills, Kelly Mcleod, Rachel Evans and Nic Reynolds. All members of staff can be contacted via the office on 01527 962794

The Governor with responsibility for child protection is Tom Butt.

These people also hold responsibility for children in the Looked After system with Nicola Reynolds being the named person. 

We will review our policy and procedures on an annual basis. 

Please see the school Safeguarding (including Child Protection policy) and online safety policies which cover all types of abuse and includes radicalisation and extremism as part of child exploitation.

Procedures that ensure that the school offers excellent safeguarding measures include:

• -careful vetting during the recruitment of all new staff taking account of Department for Education guidance, including ensuring recruiters have received Safer Recruitment training;
• -thorough induction for all staff and annual training for all staff;
• -annually reviewed procedures and policies through the Governing Body, including multi agency working arrangements;
• -clear procedures for all staff outlined in the staff handbook, including risk assessments for all aspects of school life, which are updated annually and involve the children;
• -all Designated Safeguarding Leads undertake DSL training every 2 years as well as regular updates in areas of safeguarding that are most relevant to the school context such as CSE and Domestic Abuse.
• -Chair of Governors undertakes termly reviews of all aspects of safeguarding, including Child Protection, Positive Handling, Pupil Safety, Medical Needs, the Single Central Record (which maintains details on staff members and volunteers) and any incidents referring to bullying, online safety or racism;
• -regular monitoring by the governors and senior leaders, including discussions with pupils and parent questionnaires
• -there is a whistleblowing policy which is available to all staff.

All related policies can be found on our Policy page.