Safeguarding

At Charlton CE Primary school, safeguarding is our highest priority in order to keep all of our children safe. We have five trained Designated Safeguarding Leads:

Sally-Anne Hanson		DSL - Headteacher
Amy Moat		Primary Deputy DSL - Deputy Headteacher and SENCO
Andrea Charlton		Deputy DSL - Family Liaison Officer
Rebecca Skelton		Deputy DSL - Key Stage One Leader
Lois Morton		Deputy DSL - Online Safety

Child Protection & Safeguarding Procedures at Charlton Church of England Primary School

The staff and governors of Charlton Church of England Primary School recognise that we have a primary responsibility for the care, welfare and safety of the pupils in our school. We recognise that all staff including volunteers will have a full and active part to play in safeguarding our pupils. One way in which we seek to protect our pupils is by helping them learn about the risks of possible abuse, helping them to recognise unwelcome behaviours in others and acquire the confidence and skills they need to keep themselves safe. The welfare of each child is our paramount consideration.

School Aims

• To ensure that all members of staff are aware of the great need to safeguard pupils from harm, significant risk of harm or any level of abuse.
• To ensure that all members of staff are aware of their responsibilities in being alert to, and reporting their concerns about any, possible instances of abuse.
• To emphasise the need for clear communication.
• To ensure that members of staff are familiar with the established procedures for the protection of children and the reporting of concerns.
• To ensure the monitoring of children known or thought to be at risk through pastoral care.
• To develop and promote effective working relationships with other agencies, especially Social Services.
• To ensure that all staff and volunteers within Charlton that have access to children have been checked as to their suitability.

Safer Recruitment

Charlton is committed to ensure that all steps are taken to recruit staff and volunteers who are safe to work with our pupils/students and have their welfare and protection as the highest priority. The Governing Body and School Leadership Team are responsible for ensuring that the school follows safe recruitment processes outlined within Guidance, including accurate maintenance of the Single Central Record; and an application, vetting and recruitment process which places safeguarding at its centre, regardless of employee or voluntary role.

Security

• All staff have a responsibility for maintaining awareness of buildings and grounds security and for reporting concerns that may come to light. We operate within a whole-school community ethos and welcome comments from pupils, parents and others about areas that may need improvement as well as what we are doing well.
• Appropriate checks will be undertaken in respect of visitors and volunteers coming into school as outlined within guidance. Visitors will be expected to sign in and out via the office visitors log and to display a visitors badge whilst on school site. Any individual who is not known or identifiable should be challenged for clarification and reassurance.
• The school will not accept the behaviour of any individual (parent or other) that threatens school security or leads others (child or adult) to feel unsafe. Such behaviour will be treated as a serious concern and may result in a decision to refuse access for that individual to the school site.

Useful Links

ChildLine 24/7 support and counselling for children and young people

ThinkUKnow Mental Health support and resources for suicidal thoughts

Kooth Online Mental Wellbeing community for children and young adults

Mind Mental Health support and resources for suicidal thoughts

Preventative Safeguarding

Safeguarding in the Curriculum

Our intent is to provide a curriculum that ensures every pupil, regardless of need or background, acquires the knowledge and skills to successfully transition to their secondary setting as a well-informed, globally aware young person. This includes ensuring that all our pupils know how to keep themselves, and others, safe at all times in order to be successful.

Our teaching of safeguarding is implemented across our mapped curricula for computing, personal, social and health education and relationships and sex education, we specifically plan to teach children about online safety, healthy relationships, keeping healthy minds and bodies and what to do in an emergency situation.

Further to this we work with the outside agencies listed below to focus on specific areas related to our local context:

• Kent Police Prevent Unit – Raising awareness of online grooming and radicalisation.
• NSPCC -Speak Out Stay Safe and PANTS
• Kent Police Mini Cadets Progranmme
• Nurture UK

Across our school day and in all areas of the curriculum there are many more times when we are teaching the children how to keep themselves safe.
Some examples of this are:

• Responding in the moment to an online safety concern that has been raised such as children saying they are using apps which are above their age rating.
• Teaching children how to use a knife and fork safely in the dining hall both so that they do not hurt themselves and so they can cut food up into safe sizes.
• Preparing pupils for school trips and how to use trains, coaches, walking safely by busy roads. How to interact safely with strangers and what to do if you get lost.
• Planning routes and understanding maps in geography, as well as learning their own addresses, so they can get themselves home or tell a safe adult where they live.
• Visits from police officers, firemen and road crossing patrols to understand how these people keep us safe.
• Building the confidence and resilience to give new things a go, such as tackling a difficult question in maths, and developing the skills to be able to handle if we get the answer wrong.
• At home time, following safe procedures for releasing children to whoever is collecting them and reinforcing why we do this.

We know that our safeguarding culture has the impact we want it to have as our children trust our team with information that is worrying them. Our children can name, and do talk to, trusted adults across the school. They make use of our worry boxes to tell us when they want to talk about something. They know what healthy relationships are and tell us if they are worried about a relationship inside or outside of school. Parents also report that their children feel safe at Charlton CE Primary School. Our children can talk about how they will keep themselves safe and make reasoned, principled decisions when choosing how to act. This ensures that our pupils successfully transition to their secondary settings as well-informed, globally aware young people and are also prepared for their future careers.

Child Protection and Safeguarding policy

Keeping Children Safe in Education

Click here to be taken to our policies page