The Designated Safeguarding Lead (DSL) at our school is Mrs De Barr. The Deputy Designated Safeguarding Leads (DDSLs) are Mrs Hall and Mrs Mintoft. Our Safeguarding Governor is Mrs Smeaton, our Chair of Governors.
Pickering Community Junior School takes its safeguarding responsibilities extremely seriously; safeguarding is central to the work that we do and there is a strong safeguarding culture. At Pickering Community Junior School, we recognise the vital importance of robust procedures and practices which lead to a safe learning environment for every child in our care. We understand that there is a need to promote a culture where there is a shared responsibility for every aspect of safeguarding and to create an arena of safety for all our children. Whether we are planning school visits to enrich our curriculum or inviting adults into our school, we understand that it is our duty to keep children safe whilst they are in our care.
Aims
Our recruitment processes for all posts in school are rigorous and conform to current recommended guidance to do our utmost to ensure that only those suitable to work with children are employed. We ensure that those staff involved in recruitment have undergone the latest Safer Recruitment Training.
We have a Staff and Volunteer Code of Conduct in place which sets out detailed policies and procedures for staff to follow – these have been put in place to keep everybody safe. Our Child Protection Policy also ensures that where a child makes a disclosure about an event outside school, there are appropriate procedures in place to ensure that action is taken to support the child.
Safeguarding the children within our care is wider than just policy documents. We aim to create an arena of safety at school where children feel valued, respected and cared for in a building that is safe, well maintained and conducive to learning. Local contextual safeguarding risks are clearly understood by all members of staff and are addressed through our curriculum (in PSHCE and Computing lessons in particular) and through our schedule of assemblies. Our policy documents are shared with key stakeholders and their implementation is monitored by our governing body and senior leaders in school. Our governing body have over-arching responsibility for checking that our school complies with necessary regulations. Their recommendations to the Full Governing Body are implemented in full.
A wide range of additional policies and procedures ensure that children are kept safe which includes:
Many of these, along with other key policy documents, can be found in the 'Policy Section' of the website.
What is Prevent?
As of the 1st July 2015 all schools and registered childcare providers are subject to a duty to, in the exercise of their functions, have 'due regard to the need to prevent people from being drawn into terrorism'. This is called the Prevent Duty. Further information on this can be downloaded from the link below.
At Pickering Community Junior School this is seen as part of our school's wider safeguarding duties and is consistent with our other responsibilities in this area. The procedures we follow are set out in our Child Protection Policy (which can be found in the Policies section).
Where we identify that there is a need to refer an individual, the relevant safeguarding procedures are followed to ensure that an appropriate referral is made to Children's Social Care or Health and Adult Services in an effective and timely way. To enable us to discharge this duty effectively all Senior Leaders in school and a selection of Governors have attended the WRAP training session. All other colleagues have completed the online PREVENT training.