Safeguarding at St Mary's Catholic Primary School
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Safeguarding at St Mary's Catholic Primary School
If you have a safeguarding concern, please speak to one of the safeguarding team.
Mrs Louise Brown, Designated Safeguarding Lead: lbrown@st-marys.swindon.sch.uk
Mrs Rachael Weaver, Deputy Safeguarding Lead: rweaver@st-marys.swindon.sch.uk
Mrs Andrea Cull, Deputy Safeguarding Lead: acull@st-marys.swindon.sch.uk
Mrs Sam Corbett, Deputy Safeguarding Lead: scorbett@st-marys.swindon.sch.uk
If you need to speak or contact the safeguarding governor, please email: safeguarding@st-marys.swindon.sch.uk
Safeguarding at St Mary's Catholic Primary School
This school takes seriously its responsibility to protect, safeguard and promote the welfare of the children and young people in its care.
“The welfare of the pupil is paramount.” (Children Act 1989.)
Our staff and governors are committed to safeguarding the pupils at this school and contribute to multi-agency working to keep pupils and students safe.
Working Together To Safeguard Children defines safeguarding as:
- providing help and support to meet the needs of children as soon as problems emerge;
- protecting children from maltreatment, whether that is within or outside the home, including online;
- preventing impairment of children’s mental and physical health or development;
- ensuring that children grow up in circumstances consistent with the provision of safe and effective care;
- promoting the upbringing of children with their birth parents, or otherwise their family network through a kinship care arrangement, whenever possible and where this is in the best interests of the children;
- taking action to enable all children to have the best outcomes in line with the outcomes set out in the Children’s Social Care National Framework.
All adults working in our school maintain an attitude of ' it could happen here'. We recognise that staff, because of their contact with and knowledge of children in their care, are well placed to identify abuse, neglect and exploitation and offer support to children in need.
Key People
Our Designated Safeguarding Lead (DSL) is Mrs Brown, Headteacher.
Our Deputy Designated Safeguarding Leads (DDSL) are Mrs Weaver, Mrs Cull and Mrs Corbett.
The named governor responsible for safeguarding is Luisa Weston.
If you are ever concerned about the safety or wellbeing of any child, please speak directly to:
- one of the named safeguarding leaders above
- any member of St Mary's staff team
- a member of the NSPCC safeguarding helpline on 0808 800 5000
- a member of Contact Swindon on 01793 464646
Our Duty of Care
All staff have a duty of care to report concerns when they arise. Parents and carers will be informed of such concerns unless to do so would increase the risk to the child.
A written record of any concern will be kept on file and shared with other safeguarding professionals as necessary. Written records will be transferred to the children's new schools when they leave St Mary's. Copies will not be kept on site.
What we do?
To keep up-to-date with local and national statutory guidance, training, serious case reviews and best practice, we employ the services of an independent consultant, Sarah Turner. Sarah supports St Mary's with annual external reviews of safeguarding, termly safeguarding briefings and ongoing advice.
Training
- All members of staff receive at least Level 1 safeguarding training annually.
- Every member of staff is expected to read and understand Part 1 of Keeping Children Safe in Education
- All members of staff are expected to undertake online Prevent Duty training
- All members of staff are expected to read and follow Safer Working Practice guidance
- The safeguarding team (Mrs Brown, Mrs Weaver, Mrs Cull and Mrs Corbett) have Level 3 training
- Mrs Brown and Mrs Weaver have attended Safer Recruitment training
- In staff meetings, we regularly review safeguarding scenarios and share termly safeguarding updates from Swindon Safeguarding Partnership, Swindon Multi Agency Safeguarding Hub and Sarah Turner Consulting.
Mental Health and Wellbeing
Physical Chastisement and Positive Parenting
As children develop, it is natural for them to explore the boundaries that are around them. This happens both in school and at home. At times, this can lead to moments of challenging behaviour. The leaflets below give useful comments that parents can use to help shape their approach at home.
Positive Parenting – a guide from the NSPCC
Disciplining Your Children – information guide for parents
The Law and Physical Chastisement
UK law protects every child up to the age of 18 years from cruel and abusive treatment by their parents and carers.
- It is against the law for a parent to use physical punishment on their child that causes marks.
- It is illegal to use an implement to hit a child.
- Parents who cause deliberate harm to their child could face criminal prosecution.
- It is against the law for anyone who is not the child's parent to use ANY form of physical punishment.
If any parent would like to discuss approaches that can be used at home to promote positive behaviour please contact their child's class teacher, or a member of the Senior Leadership Team.
Domestic Violence
Wiltshire Police will report to schools when a child or young person has been affected by a domestic incident.
This will ensure that a member of the school staff, known as a Key Adult, will be shared the information in confidence, while ensuring that the school is able to make provision for possible difficulties experienced by children, or their families, who have been involved in, affected or exposed to a domestic abuse incident.
We are keen to offer the best support possible to all our children and we believe this will be extremely beneficial for all those involved.
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Home or Out Alone?
Many adults might feel unsure about whether their child is ready to be left unsupervised or have concerns about another child being left alone.
There is no legal age limit for leaving children home alone, but we would not recommend leaving any child under the age of 12 at home unsupervised, especially for extended periods of time.
A child who expresses concern about being left alone should never be without a parent or carer and for those young people who do feel comfortable, it's vital they're left with contact numbers for a parent, carer or trusted adult. Long periods of being unsupervised can lead to children feeling afraid or neglected.
NSPCC have some advice to help you make that decision as well as a useful quiz to check if your child is ready.
Wider Safeguarding Areas at St Mary's
First Aid and Medicines
Please click this link to read our policy on Supporting Children with Medical Conditions.
We have a dedicated team of First Aiders here at St Mary's who receive paediatric first aid training regularly. Miss Clarke is the key contact for first aid and medicines. We also work closely with the school nursing team.
Health and Safety
Senior staff and governors work hard to keep our premises safe and secure. We undertake fire drills regularly and we also have an emergency plan. All trips that the children attend are properly risk assessed and governors carry out regular safety walks of the premises. When on site, all visitors are expected to sign in and out and must wear a St Mary's identification badge.
Safer Recruitment
We expect all staff and volunteers to share our commitment to safeguarding. All staff and volunteers are expected to undertake an enhanced Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check. We also carry out identity, professional qualification and disqualification by association checks before any person undertakes any role within our school.
E-Safety
In 2017, we were re-accredited with the South West Grid for Learning 360 Degrees E-safety Accreditation. We apply strong filters and safety systems on all our school computers and tablets. All internet use by children is overseen by a member of staff and we actively teach children about keeping safe online through our cross-curricular Computing curriculum. For further information please click this link to see our page dedicated to E-Safety
Links for Parents
Information Sharing
Please click HERE to find more details about the information we collect on children and adults and how this is shared in school and with other parties.