Keeping Safe
Your child’s safety is of paramount importance to our school, and we have clear and consistent procedures in place to ensure that your child is safe. We meet all the statutory requirements and regularly monitor safeguarding provision.
Our lead member of staff responsible for Child Protection and Safeguarding is Mrs Haken (Head of School) who meets regularly with the senior leadership team and governors to monitor the impact of what we have in place and also ensuring we follow all legislation. All policies and documents relating to Safeguarding at our school are available on this website either on this page or in the policy section.
If you have any concerns about the safety or wellbeing of a child, please make sure you speak to Mrs Haken as soon as possible.
Below is an overview of the areas of school life which ensure the safety of our children:
- Safe recruitment of staff – including training of the interview panel, DBS checks and pre-employment checks and references.
- Clear and regularly reviewed policies for child protection, behaviour, safeguarding and many other related policies.
- All staff are trained at regular intervals – this covers all aspects of safeguarding & child protection.
- Site Safety – our school has security doors within the main entrance and only the front gate by the office is open during school hours. All other access points are controlled with security locks and gates. The school is also covered by security cameras. We have a secure fenced boundary which is inspected regularly.
- We hold regular discussions with the children through assemblies, school council and PSHE lessons regarding what is in place at our school to keep them safe and to improve awareness of personal safety.
- Online Safety – we have a clear policy in place and the children are taught about online safety in every year group at the start of each year. We have regular staff training and offer parent workshops on how to support your child with this.
- We have very high standards of behaviour and our behaviour across the school is very good. We follow a therapeutic approach which supports the children to understand their emotions and behaviour. We work in partnership with parents / carers if there are any concerns.
- We don’t tolerate bullying and will act swiftly if there are any concerns.
- Educational visits are always risk assessed – we ensure the ratio of adults to children is always appropriate to the needs of the children and visit and staff always carry out a pre-visit to the location before taking the children.
- All our Learning Support staff, Midday staff, office staff, learning mentors and some teachers are first aid trained.
- We are an inclusive school – Our Inclusion Team work closely with our children and their families to support any additional needs effectively.
- Health & Safety must be rigorous at all times – our Governor Premises Committee meet every term to monitor and discuss all aspects of H&S
- Our curriculum teaches our children many aspects of their personal safety – PSHE, Sex & Relationships Education, visitors to school such as the school nurse and Fire Service.
- We provide a termly safeguarding report to Governors – this ensures all aspects of safety provision are up to date.
- We work with a range of agencies to provide any additional support to our families and children. These include the Local Authority, Team around the Family, Essex Social Care and the school health team.