Child Protection and Safeguarding
The arrangements for safeguarding are effective. Leaders know the local risks pupils and families face. At school, pupils learn how to keep safe. Leaders, including governors, carefully oversee the recruitment of staff and volunteers. They ensure adults in school are safe to be there.
Ofsted, November 2022
Designated Safeguarding Leads
Michael Scott | Designated Safeguarding Lead and Prevent Single Point of Contact (SPOC)
David Millington | Designated Safeguarding Lead and Young Carers Single Point of Contact (SPOC)
Ann O’Donnell | Operational Designated Safeguarding Lead and Operation Encompass Single Point of Contact (SPOC)
Alice Tame | Deputy Designated Safeguarding Lead
Emilie Blackett | Deputy Designated Safeguarding Lead
Christina Kent | Deputy Designated Safeguarding Lead
Anna Nicholson | Deputy Designated Safeguarding Lead
What is child protection and safeguarding?
Child protection and safeguarding is our duty of care to minimise the risk of harm to all children.
Our child protection and safeguarding policy aims to provide a framework for our workforce to safeguard and promote the welfare of pupils who attend our school.
The policy aims to ensure that appropriate action is taken promptly to safeguard and promote children’s welfare.
All staff are aware of their statutory responsibilities concerning safeguarding and are properly trained in recognising and reporting child protection and safeguarding issues.
Child-on-child abuse
Someries Infant School and Early Childhood Education Centre recognises that children are vulnerable and capable of abusing their peers. We take such abuse as seriously as abuse perpetrated by an adult. This includes verbal as well as physical abuse. Child-on-child abuse will not be tolerated or passed off as part of ‘banter’ or ‘growing up’.
We are committed to a whole-school approach to ensure the prevention, early identification, and appropriate management of child-on-child abuse within our school and beyond.
In case where child-on-child abuse is identified, we will follow our child protection and safeguarding procedures, taking a contextual approach to support all children who have been affected by the situation.
We recognise that child-on-child abuse can manifest itself in many ways, including:
- child sexual exploitation (CSE)
- sexting or youth-produced digital imagery
- up-skirting
- bullying
- radicalisation
- abuse in intimate relationships
- children who display harmful sexual behaviour
- gang associated and serious violence (county lines)
- technology being used for bullying and other abuse behaviour
We also recognise that these behaviours can occur online as well as face-to-face.
Some of these behaviours will need to be handled with reference to other policies in school, such as our behaviour policy, child protection and safeguarding policy and online safety policy.
Our procedures concentrate on child-on-child abuse in the context of sexual harassment and sexual violence and are compliant with the statutory guidance on child-on-child abuse as set out in the Department for Education’s ‘Keeping Children Safe in Education’ and should be read in conjunction with the Luton Safeguarding Children Board’s child protection and safeguarding policies and procedures and any relevant practice guidance issued by it.
Operation Encompass
Someries Infant School and Early Childhood Education Centre is part of Operation Encompass.
Operation Encompass has been established to help schools in providing support to children who may have been affected by incidents of domestic abuse in the home. We know that children can be significantly physically or emotionally harmed when they are involved in, present at or witness to domestic abuse.
As part of Operation Encompass, we will receive notifications following any domestic abuse incidents reported by Bedfordshire Police where a child attending the school may have been affected.
The school has designated Mrs Ann O’Donnell as the Key Lead for this scheme. As our Key Adult, Mrs O’Donnell has received guidance and training from Bedfordshire Police to allow her to use the information that has been shared in confidence and to make sure the right support is available for children and their families.
Online safety
Our duty of care to minimise the risk of harm to pupils in our school extends their use of the internet.
We have created a comprehensive website which provides a range of information and guidance related to keeping your child safe whilst online. You can access this website by clicking here.
Protecting children from extremism and radicalisation
As part of Someries Infant School and Early Childhood Education Centre’s ongoing child protection and safeguarding duties, we comply fully with the government’s Prevent Strategy.
All schools have been subject to a duty under section 26 of the Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015, in the exercise of their functions, to have ‘due regard to the need to prevent people from being drawn into terrorism’. This duty is known as the Prevent Duty for Schools.
At Someries Infant School and Early Childhood Education Centre, we build pupils’ resilience to radicalisation by promoting fundamental British values and enabling our pupils to challenge extremist views at an age-appropriate level. You can read about what we do to promote British values here. You can read about our My Big Voice sessions which develop our pupils’ ability to answer ‘big’ questions and to develop their moral and social awareness here. We also hold the International Values-based Education Trust’s Quality Mark for the values-based education we provide our pupils; you can read more about this here.
The statutory guidance refers to the importance of Prevent awareness training to equip staff to identify children at risk of being drawn into terrorism and to challenge extremist ideas. The Home Office has developed a core training product for this purpose – Workshop to Raise Awareness of Prevent (WRAP). All our staff have received WRAP training relating to what Prevent is about and how to deal with any issues they may see inside or outside school.
ACT Early
The increase in time spent online due to COVID-19, and a rise in hateful extremism, is creating an environment in which young and vulnerable people are at a greater risk of being targeted and groomed by people who wish to do harm.
It is family and friends – including close co-workers – who are often the first to spot the worrying changes in behaviour that might be signs that someone they know may be at risk from being radicalised by terrorists or extremist content online.
However, recent studies have found that the public are unsure of the signs to look out for and who to turn to when they have concerns. Most people know little about the Prevent programme or the support it provides to help vulnerable people.
That is why Counter Terrorism Policing (CTP) has launched a new website to encourage friends and family to act early, share concerns and seek help if they are worried that someone they care about is being radicalised.
Useful websites
You can access advice on protecting children from extremism and radicalisation from the websites below