Safeguarding

Safeguarding

Coton C of E (VC) Primary School is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people and expect all staff and volunteers to share this commitment.

If you have ANY concerns about the safety and welfare of the children and young people at our school, please speak to a member of our safeguarding team. This can be done either by phone call, in person or via email: office@coton.cambs.sch.uk.

(If you are emailing, please ensure to leave contact information.)

Whilst safeguarding children is everyone's responsibility, the following members of staff lead on safeguarding practice and child protection in school:

Miss Sarah Jarvis - Designated Safeguarding Lead (DSL) 

Mr James Hedges - Deputy Designated Safeguarding Lead (DDSL)

Mrs Nicola Harvey - Deputy Designated Safeguarding Lead (DDSL) 

We believe that the safety and well being of all children and young people is of paramount importance. We recognise that parents and carers send their children to school each day with the expectation that the school provides a safe and secure environment in which their children can flourish. We work extremely hard to create a warm, caring and safe community and therefore have a wide range of measures in place to ensure this is put into practice and is maintained, to identify concerns early and provide help for children, to prevent concerns from escalating.

Safeguarding and Child Protection Statement

Under section 175 of the Education Act 2002 (as amended), *the Education (Independent School Standards) Regulations 2014, the Non-Maintained Special Schools (England) Regulations 2015, and the Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Act 2009 (as amended) to have arrangements in place to safeguard and promote the welfare of children.

We will endeavour to provide a safe and welcoming environment where children are respected and valued.

The school will therefore be alert to signs of abuse and neglect and will follow the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Safeguarding Children Partnership Board’s procedures to ensure that children receive appropriate and effective support and protection.

Parents and carers should know that the law requires all school staff to pass on information which gives rise to a concern about a child’s welfare, including risk from neglect, physical, emotional or sexual abuse. Parents and carers should know that records of safeguarding concerns may be kept about their child. School staff will seek, in general, to discuss any concerns with them including referrals to other agencies.

Local procedures state that, “Consent should always be sought from an adult with parental responsibility for the child/young person before passing information about them to Children’s Social Care, unless seeking consent would place the child at risk of significant harm or may lead to the loss of evidence for example destroying evidence of a crime or influencing a child about a disclosure made.”  This includes allowing them to share information without consent, if it is not possible to gain consent, if it cannot be reasonably expected that a professional gains consent, or if to gain consent would place a child at risk.

Where there is a need to share special category personal data, the Data Protection Act 2018 contains ‘safeguarding of children and individuals at risk’ as a processing condition that allows professionals to share information.

In accordance with legislation and local Information Sharing protocols, we will ensure that information is shared securely and sensitively.  Information will only be shared with other services where it is deemed necessary and proportionate to ensure that children and young people are safe and receive the right service. In all circumstances, the safety of the child will be the paramount concern.

We will contact Children’s Social Care when we have reasonable cause to suspect a child may be suffering or likely to suffer significant harm. Occasionally, concerns are passed on which are later shown to be unfounded.  Parents and carers will appreciate that the member of staff in the school with responsibility for child protection (known as the Designated Safeguarding Lead or Deputy Designated Safeguarding Lead) was carrying out their responsibilities in accordance with the law and acting in the best interests of all children.

Under Section 3 (5) of the Children Act 1989, any person who has care of a child “may….do what is reasonable in all the circumstances of the case for the purpose of safeguarding promoting the child’s welfare”.  This means that on rare occasions, a school may need to “hold” a child in school whilst Social Care and the Police investigate any concerns further.

E-Safety

Keeping Children Safe in Education

Safeguarding and Child Protection Policy

Prevent Duty

Section 26 of the Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015 (the Act) places a duty on certain bodies, in the exercise of their functions, to have “due regard to the need to prevent people from being drawn into terrorism”.

This guidance is issued under section 29 of the Act. The Act states that the authorities subject to the provisions must have regard to this guidance when carrying out the duty.

The Prevent strategy, published by the Government in 2011, is part of our overall counter-terrorism strategy. The aim of the Prevent strategy is to reduce the threat to the UK from terrorism by stopping people becoming terrorists or supporting terrorism. In the Act this has simply been expressed as the need to “prevent people from being drawn into terrorism”. 6. The 2011 Prevent strategy has three specific strategic objectives: • respond to the ideological challenge of terrorism and the threat we face from those who promote it; • prevent people from being drawn into terrorism and ensure that they are given appropriate advice and support; and • work with sectors and institutions where there are risks of radicalisation that we need to address.