How we protect our students
Safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children is everyone’s responsibility. Everyone who comes into contact with children and their families has a role to play in safeguarding children. At Eskdale School this is achieved through the high profile of safeguarding throughout the school, constant self review and the following areas:
Our Governing Body
Our governing body ensure we have a Designated Safeguarding Lead (Paul Dixon) and Deputies (Jo Parlby and Jane Bradley) who are trained and capable of fulfilling the role.
They are also responsible for:
· Ensuring the schools policies and procedures are fit for purpose
· Attendance
· School Security
· Safer recruitment
· Allegations against staff and volunteers
Policies
At Eskdale School we work very hard to ensure that our policies are true and effective. You can find our Policies on the Policies Page. All staff have access to our online Staff Handbook, which includes information on all aspects of the school including staff code of conduct and safeguarding.
School Site Security
We keep the school safe and secure by:
· Site access – the school has one main entrance, which is busy at all times.
· Entrance to the building – all entrances at the front of school have either locks on doors or members of staff to supervise them. We ask that ALL visitors report to main school reception.
· All visitors to the school must sign in at main school reception. At this stage they will be issued with a lanyard. If you have provided a valid DBS and it is suitable you will allowed to move around the school unsupervised, otherwise you will escorted everywhere.
· We regularly remind all staff and students that they have a responsibility to either challenge or inform the nearest member of staff of anyone in the school without a lanyard or following our rules regarding lanyards
· Completion of Health and Safety Audits and following our policy.
· Like all schools we hire out our facilities and will have contractual staff on site at various times. We have suitable policies and procedures that includes following guidance from Keeping Children Safe Page 37, point 134. In short we ensure they have suitable DBS checks and where they hire our facilities safeguarding procedures are in place and we believe are suitable to keep our students safe.
Further details on the above can be provided when visiting our school.
Safe Recruitment Procedures
This includes all aspects of the school's:
· Procedures
· Single Central Register
· Training
Training
This includes training for:
· All staff, including induction, ongoing and annual training
· Designated Safeguarding Lead
· Governors
· Agency staff and volunteers
· Students
Specific Safeguarding issues
Please visit our page entitled Protecting Your Child, which provides links and useful information on the following areas of safeguarding. We address these throughout the curriculum, during our Assemblies and during form time.
Allegations against a member of staff and whistleblowing
It is essential that any allegation of abuse made against a teacher or other member of staff or volunteer in a school is dealt with very quickly, in a fair and consistent way that provides effective protection for the child and at the same time supports the person who is the subject of the allegation. All students know that they can speak to their Form Tutor and Head of Year about anything. Staff must then refer to the relevant person as explained in the WSP Whistleblowing Policy. Students and staff are encouraged to raise concerns within the school rather than overlooking a problem or ‘blowing the whistle’ outside. The School is committed to the highest possible standards of openness, probity and accountability. In line with that commitment it encourages employees and others with serious concerns about any aspect of the School’s work to come forward and voice those concerns. It recognises that certain cases will have to proceed on a confidential basis. This policy makes it clear that staff can do so without fear of reprisals and is intended to encourage and enable staff to raise serious concerns within the School; rather than overlooking a problem or publicly disclosing the matter.
Visitors and volunteers
All our visitors and volunteers must follow our procedures in order to help safeguard our students. These are explained in our policy and our staff and students are fully trained. The key elements are:
· No visitor in the school who has not got an updated DBS is left alone at any point.
· All content delivered by external speakers is checked before delivery.
· Eskdale School is accessed via its own entrance, all visitors are signed in and a lanyard is issued.
· Contractors all follow our DBS checks to ensure they are safe to work in a school.
Protecting vulnerable children
For all cases where we believe a student is at risk we will refer to North Yorkshire Safeguarding Children on 01609 535123. This decision will be made for any of the following reasons:
· if we know of a child who may become vulnerable without additional help and support
· if we are worried a child or young person is at risk of, or is being, hurt or abused
· if we want to know about services available to support children and families
We work with social services to ensure that:
· where a child has been identified as being at risk, there is a written plan in place with clear and agreed procedures to protect them.
· Where a child is the subject of a child in need plan or child protection plan, or is looked after, a suitable plan is effectively established and implemented
We work with the relevant agency where:
· there are risks associated with children offending
· misusing drugs or alcohol
· self-harming
· going missing
· being vulnerable to radicalisation
· being sexually exploited:
Our Looked After Children are kept safe by:
· Working with all relevant agencies
· Following agreed plans
Our SEND students are kept safe by:
· Education
· Care and support
We share information on a need to know basis and constantly review our own procedures.
Inter-agency working/Early Help
The school is committed to working with other agencies to ensure the safety and welfare of our students.
· We contribute to inter-agency working in line with statutory guidance, Working Together to Safeguarding Children.
· We will share information with agencies to protect our students following the guidance provided by the Data Protection Act
Operation Encompass
Operation Encompass has been designed to provide early reporting to schools of any domestic abuse incidents that occur outside of normal school hours and that might have had an impact on a child attending our premises the following day. This information will be shared at the earliest opportunity between Monday to Friday and, when an incident occurs on a Friday, Saturday or a Sunday, the police will contact us the following Monday.
For more information please visit: