Safeguarding

“Everyone who comes into contact with children and their families has a role to play. School and college staff are particularly important as they are in a position to identify concerns early, provide help for children, and prevent concerns from escalating.” (Keeping Children Safe in Education).

Designed to support the school to meet statutory requirements by conducting a safeguarding review which will inform the school of significant additional risks that need to be addressed. We will make recommendations where appropriate and help the school maintain and develop a safeguarding culture in accordance with Ofsted requirements and good practice.

How do you implement and manage safeguarding within your school?

Our safeguarding reviews offer schools the opportunity to evaluate their current practices and procedures against national and local expectations. Our reviews remain a very popular product in supporting leaders to evaluate their safeguarding responsibilities and in preparing for inspection. The process involves reviewing the school's safeguarding website content and a visit to a school for up to 4 hours.

The visit will reflect on:

• Website content against requirements and how additional information is shared
• Undertake and share the outcomes of a staff survey
• Review of the Single Central Record and staff personnel files
• Reflect on the effectiveness of site security, signage and visitor welcome procedures
• Talk to children
• Review safeguarding records for children where concerns exist and how aspects such as attendance are monitored
• Consider the impact of a broad range of training including for those in lead safeguarding role
• Discuss the impact of a wide range of policies and procedures including staff expectations set within these

Following the review, a report is completed highlighting any areas for development with links to, or copies of resources to support these aspects where appropriate. The school will also have a copy of the smart-survey staff questionnaire results. These are anonymous so suitable to share with governors and very useful for inspection.

• Fast and direct access to safeguarding support
• Proven, quality service from experienced and trusted professionals
• Experts who understand the South West context

We can offer bespoke consultancy to address specific safeguarding issues and/or provide safeguarding support for your designated safeguarding lead.

• A blend of virtual and face-to-face coaching and supervision for those who work within the safeguarding team. As a team we are now offering mentoring sessions for DSLs and other staff within the Safeguarding team, this support is designed to support you in your DSL role.
• The purpose of the sessions will be to provide an opportunity for reflection and sharing of good practice. The session can take place virtually or face to face, 1:1 or in small groups and is designed to provide a safe space that enables you to share and reflect confidentially and with confidence.
• Being a DSL along with a number of different responsibilities is often complex and challenging. We are hopeful these mentoring sessions will help to provide you an opportunity to build your network of support and to provide a platform to raise concerns, and frustrations and to increase your knowledge base.
• Time for this work can be bought in 3-hour blocks which enables one face-to-face visit.

Technology workshop - supporting parents and carers to help their child or children use the internet safely. The session is designed not to scare or intimidate, but to reflect and review what the dangers of the online or virtual world are and how, as parents and carers we can help our children navigate the challenges they will face.

“The trainer is clearly an expert in the field of safeguarding, but also very skilled at tailoring the key messages to parents. His workshop provided a great balance between hard-hitting messages about the dangers and potential risks to children online, whilst also providing practical strategies and empowering parents to be able to help. The trainer formed a great rapport with his audience, actively engaging them with some challenging content. Parents found the session extremely useful and I would highly recommend this workshop to other schools.”

Find out more...

Current courses include:

• Extremism, radicalisation and PREVENT - training suitable for all school staff
• Child protection raising awareness (group 2)
• Two-day initial group 3 safeguarding
• Safer recruitment and allegations management (nationally accredited)
• Group 3 safeguarding refresher training
• Safeguarding for governors
• Coaching/mentoring within child protection
• Safeguarding for administrators
• Child sexual exploitation

• Establish, implement and follow good safeguarding policies and procedures
• Ensure all staff are aware of and follow your safeguarding policies and procedures
• Ensure that all staff and volunteers receive child protection training to promote the welfare of your children and protect them from harm. Choose the safeguarding subscription that best suits the needs of staff in your school/academy

Our most comprehensive package E subscription includes:

• Membership of the subscribers' website with unlimited access to safeguarding policies, procedural updates and changes in legislation including guidance on implementation
• Safeguarding forum
• Phone and email support
• Newsletters
• Access to the subscribers' Facebook group
• Access to podcasts
• Child protection refresher training
• Safeguarding review
• One selected training from the list
• 3 hours coaching for DSL in each school