“Safeguarding” refers to measures designed to protect the health, well-being, and human rights of individuals.
Every child has a right to protection from harm. Creating a safe and welcoming environment, where everyone is respected and valued, is at the heart of safeguarding at Madeley School.
The purpose of Madeley School’s Safeguarding and Pupil Protection Policy is to ensure every child who is a registered pupil at our school is safe and protected from harm. This means we will always work to:
- Protect children at our school from maltreatment.
- Prevent impairment of our children’s mental and physical health or development.
- Ensure that children at our school grow up in circumstances consistent with the provision of safe and effective care.
- Undertake that role to enable children at our school to have the best outcomes.
Our policy gives clear direction to all staff including supply staff, volunteers, visitors, and parents about expected behaviour and our legal responsibility to safeguard and promote the welfare of all children at our school. It recognises the contribution it can make to protect children from harm and supporting and promoting the welfare of all the children in our care. The elements of our policy are prevention, protection, and support.
Everyone in the school who comes into contact with children and their families and carers has a role to play in safeguarding children. To fulfil this responsibility effectively, we make sure our approach is child centred. This means that we consider, at all times, what is in the best interests of the child.
Our Safeguarding Newsletters
Safeguarding Newsletters
Our Safeguarding Team
Although every member of staff at Madeley school is responsible for the safeguarding of the children in our care, we have a highly trained key team of staff, an Academy Counsellor, and Shaw Education Trust Advisor, who are designated to prevent, protect and support them:
Designated Academy Councillor for Safeguarding and Child Protection
The Academy Council has a delegated member of the governing body, Robert Millington, to take the lead in safeguarding/child protection issues and to be able to advise the council on:
- The role of the designated teachers.
- The content of Safeguarding and child protection policies.
- The content of a code of conduct for adults within the school.
- The content of the termly updates and full Annual Designated Teachers Report.
- Recruitment, selection, vetting and induction of staffs.
Shaw Education Trust
Brian Duffy: Director of Safeguarding and Governance at Shaw Education Trust.
Prevent, Protect and Support at Madeley School
As well as having a Designated Safeguarding and Child Protection team responsible for dealing with safeguarding and child protection:
Support Services
Training
All staff, employed Madeley School, undertake Level 1 Safeguarding Training and complete refresher training at the beginning of each academic year. As per statutory procedure, all employees also complete Prevent Training every two years. In addition to this, as part of their CPD, all staff complete other relevant training, relating to safeguarding and child protection, at regular intervals throughout the year, including online safety. Our Designated and Deputy Safeguarding Leads and several of the Senior Leadership Team are trained to Level 4, which is more in-depth, advanced safeguarding practice.
Safer Recruitment Procedure
Everyone who comes into contact with children and their families has a role to play in safeguarding children. School staff are particularly important as they are in a position to identify concerns early and provide help for children to prevent concerns from escalating.
The recruitment and selection process at Madeley School is designed to ensure that safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children is paramount at every stage of the process. Therefore, a range of systems, processes and vetting checks are in place to prevent unsuitable people from working with children and young people.
Visitors to School
Visitors to schools, such as parents, suppliers of goods and services, to carry out maintenance for example, are directed by school staff and need to sign in and out of school at reception. Such visitors are managed by school staff and their access to areas and movement within the school will be restricted as needs require.
Safeguarding and Pupil Protection Policy
Our policy has been equality impact assessed and we believe in line with the Equality Act 2010. It does not have an adverse effect on race, gender or disability equality and is used in conjunction with Keeping Children Safe in Education (KCSIE).
Safeguarding Policy
Our policy describes the management systems and arrangements in place to create and maintain a safe learning environment for all our pupils. It identifies categories for concern and how Madeley School will act in such a way to minimise or negate the safeguarding risks that children are vulnerable to.
Personal, social and health education (PSHE) lessons
Through our structured personal, social and health education sessions, assemblies and morning registration periods, we teach children how to protect themselves. Some of the topics we explore:
- risky behaviour
- suitable and inappropriate physical contact
- dealing with peer pressure
- online safety
- sex education
Key Principles of Safeguarding and Child Protection at Madeley School
The following principles underpin all our strategies, policies, procedures and practice relating to safeguarding children at our school:
- The child’s welfare is paramount
- The voice of the child should be heard
- Parents and carers are supported to exercise parental responsibility and families helped to stay together
- Partnership - Safeguarding is a shared responsibility and the most effective way of ensuring that a child’s needs are met is through working in partnership.
- Prevention
- Responses should be proportionate to the circumstances
- Protection
- Evidence-based and informed decision making
Types of Abuse
Abuse is a form of maltreatment of a child and can take the form of:
- Physical abuse - involving hitting, shaking, throwing, poisoning, burning or scalding, drowning, suffocating or otherwise causing physical harm to a child. This can also be caused by a parent or carer fabricating the symptoms of, or deliberately inducing illness in a child.
- Emotional abuse - persistent emotional maltreatment which causes severe and adverse effects on the child's emotional development.
- Sexual abuse - forcing or enticing a child or young person to take part in sexual activities, not necessarily involving high levels of violence, whether or not the child is aware of what is happening.
- Neglect is the persistent failure to meet a child's basic physical and/or psychological needs, likely to result in the serious impairment of their health or development.
Child Sexual Exploitation
Child sexual exploitation (CSE) is a type of sexual abuse. It happens when a child or young person is coerced, manipulated or deceived into sexual activity in exchange for things that they may need or want like gifts, drugs, money, status and affection. Children and young people are often tricked into believing they're in a loving and consensual relationship so the sexual activity may appear consensual. This is called grooming and is a type of abuse. They may trust their abuser and not understand that they're being abused. CSE does not always involve physical contact and can also occur through the use of technology.
Online abuse
Online abuse is any type of abuse that happens on the internet. It can happen across any device that's connected to the web, like computers, tablets, and mobile phones. And it can happen anywhere online, including social media, text messages and messaging apps, emails, online chats, online gaming, live-streaming sites.
Children can be at risk of online abuse from people they know or from strangers. It might be part of other abuse which is taking place offline, like bullying or grooming. Or the abuse might only happen online.
Female genital mutilation
Female genital mutilation (FGM) is a form of child abuse. It's dangerous and a criminal offence in the UK. FGM is the partial or total removal of external female genitalia for non-medical reasons.
Bullying and cyberbullying
Bullying is the repetitive, intentional hurting of one person or group by another person or group, where the relationship involves an imbalance of power. Bullying can be physical, verbal or psychological. It can happen face-to-face or online. Bullying includes name calling, hitting, pushing, spreading rumours, threatening or undermining someone. Bullying can happen anywhere – at school, at home or online and can hurt a child both physically and emotionally.
Domestic abuse
Domestic abuse is any type of controlling, bullying, threatening or violent behaviour between people who are or have been in a relationship. It can also happen between adults related to one another. It can seriously harm children and young people, and experiencing domestic abuse is child abuse.
Child trafficking
Trafficking is where children and young people tricked, forced, or persuaded to leave their homes and are moved or transported and then exploited, forced to work or sold. Children are trafficked for sexual exploitation, benefit fraud, forced marriage, domestic slavery like cleaning, cooking and childcare, forced labour in factories or agriculture, committing crimes, like begging, theft, working on cannabis farms or moving drugs.
Trafficked children experience many types of abuse and neglect. Traffickers use physical, sexual and emotional abuse as a form of control. Children and young people are also likely to be physically and emotionally neglected and may be sexually exploited.
Grooming
Grooming is when someone builds a relationship, trust and emotional connection with a child or young person so they can manipulate, exploit and abuse them. Children and young people who are groomed can be sexually abused, exploited or trafficked.
Anybody can be a groomer, no matter their age, gender or race. Grooming can take place over a short or long period of time – from weeks to years. Groomers may also build a relationship with the young person's family or friends to make them seem trustworthy or authoritative.
Criminal exploitation
Criminal exploitation is child abuse where children and young people are manipulated and coerced into committing crimes.
County Lines
County Lines is the police term for urban gangs exploiting young people into moving drugs from a hub, normally a large city, into other markets - suburban areas and market and coastal towns - using dedicated mobile phone lines or “deal lines”. Children as young as 12 years old have been exploited into carrying drugs for gangs.
PREVENT
What is radicalisation?
It is when a person starts to support terrorism or forms of extremism that leads to terrorism.
The government-led, multi-agency Prevent programme aims to stop individuals becoming terrorists and police play a key role.
The objectives of Prevent are to:
- tackle the ideological causes of terrorism
- intervene early to support people susceptible to radicalisation
- enable people who have already engaged in terrorism to disengage and rehabilitate
Operation Encompass
Operation Encompass is a police and education early information safeguarding partnership enabling schools to offer immediate support to children experiencing domestic abuse.
When the police attend incidents of domestic violence or abuse where children are directly or indirectly involved, they notify the designated safeguarding lead at the child’s school before the start of the next school day. The safeguarding lead then makes sure the child gets the immediate support that they need.
The programme operates in all police forces in the UK. It is available for every school in every police force.