Transcript Slide 1

Safeguarding: A guide to legislation
29th April 2015
Anna Marie Anderson, Business, Leadership and Governance Adviser, HSIP
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What are the safeguarding duties of schools?
All school staff have a responsibility to:
● Provide a safe environment for children and young people
to learn in education settings;
● Identify children and young people who are suffering or
likely to suffer significant harm, and take appropriate
action with the aim of making sure they are kept safe both
at home and in the education setting
● Work with designated safeguarding leaders in school and
through interagency working
The Teacher Standards 2012
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Safeguarding is prominent in the news
● Schoolboy, William Cornick who murdered his teacher,
Ann Maguire
● Schools suspend staff in child protection confusion
● Sex teacher, Stuart Kerner spared jail after judge says he
was “groomed” by 16 year old girl
● Pupil sex teacher Simon Parsons jailed over Thornbury
school relationship
● Female teacher faces jail for sexual abuse of male
student,16
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Safeguarding and child protection: an update
● School inspection handbook April 2015
● Inspecting safeguarding (Briefing) April 2015
● DfE statutory guidance for schools, March 2015: Keeping
children safe in education
● Working Together to safeguard children (March 2015)
● Channel Guidance & Prevent strategy for protecting
people at risk from radicalisation
● Safeguarding children and young people from sexual
exploitation
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Working Together to Safeguard Children
(March 2015)
● This guidance covers the legislative requirements and expectations on
individual services to safeguard and promote the welfare of children; and
● A clear framework for Local Safeguarding Children Boards (LSCBs) to
monitor the effectiveness of local services
● This document replaces Working Together to Safeguarding Children
(2013). Links to relevant supplementary guidance that professionals
should consider alongside this guidance can be found in Appendix C
● Working Together to safeguard Children (2013) replaced Working
Together to Safeguard Children (2010; The Framework for the
Assessment of Children in Need and their Families (2000); and Statutory
guidance on making arrangements to safeguard and promote the welfare
of children under section 11 of the Children Act 2004 (2007).
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Working Together to Safeguard Children
(March 2015)
● The difference between Working Together 2013 and
Working Together 2015 is not immediately apparent. In
other words, this is not on the same scale as the major
rewrite we saw in 2013 from Working Together 2010.
Adaptations include:
● A reference to children who have been or may be sexually
exploited, children who have undergone or may undergo
female genital mutilation and children who have been or
may be radicalised (page 15)
● Signposting to new Information Sharing Advice which
supersedes the 2008 guidance
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Working Together to Safeguard Children
(March 2015)
● The new Information sharing advice says “human rights
concerns, such as respecting the right to a private and
family life would not prevent sharing where there are real
safeguarding concerns.”
● The new Information Sharing Advice says in 2 different
places that “fears about sharing information cannot be
allowed to stand in the way of the need to safeguard and
promote the welfare of children at risk of abuse or
neglect”. It addition it says that “poor or non-existent
information sharing is a factor repeatedly flagged up as an
issue in Serious Case Reviews.”
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Keeping Children Safe in Education 2015
● This document was updated on 26th March 2015.
● This guidance replaces Keeping Children Safe in Education
2014, which replaced:
- Safeguarding Children and Safer Recruitment in Education
(December 2006)
and
- Dealing with allegations of abuse made against teachers and
other staff (2012)
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Keeping Children Safe in Education 2015
● This documents contains information on what schools and colleges
should do, and sets the legal duties with which schools and colleges
must comply. It should be read alongside statutory guidance Working
Together to Safeguard Children 2015, which applies to all schools,
and departmental advice What to do if you are worried a child is being
abused 2015 – Advice for Practitioners
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Keeping Children Safe in Education 2015
● There are a large number of changes in the new guidance, including:
● The emphasis that schools should ‘think the unthinkable’ and accept
that child abuse can happen anywhere, including in schools
● An emphasis that any adult in school can report their concerns
direction to social care or the police
● To make a clear policy statement about the Disclosure and Barring
Service (DBS) checks that will be carried out on volunteers and
governors
● To raise awareness of child sexual exploitation and female genital
mutilation (FGM)
● Ensuring that the school’s safeguarding and child protection policy is
available on their website
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Keeping Children Safe in Education 2015
● The Governement’s statutory guidance on safeguarding lists 16
specific safeguarding issues.
● It states that Expert and professional organisations are best placed to
provide up-to-date guidance and practical support on specific
safeguarding issues. For example NSPCC offers infrmation for
schools and colleges on the TES website and also on its own website
www.nspcc.org.uk
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Keeping Children Safe in Education 2015
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Child sexual exploitation (CSE)
Bullying, including cyberbullying
Domestic violence
Drugs
Fabricated or induced illness
Faith abuse
Female genital mutilation (FGM)
Forced marriage
Gangs and youth violence
Violence against women and girls (VAWG)
Mental health
Private fostering
Radicalisation
Sexting
Teenage relationship abuse
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Keeping Children Safe in Education 2015
● Activity
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Governing bodies should prevent people
who pose a risk of harm from working with children by:
● Adhering to statutory responsibilities to check staff who work with
children
● Taking proportionate decisions on whether to ask for checks beyond
what is required
● Ensuring that volunteers are appropriately supervised
● Making sure that at least one person on any appointment panel has
undertaken safer recruitment training
● Ensuring that there are procedures in place to handle allegations
against members of staff and volunteers
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OFSTED Inspecting safeguarding in maintained
schools and academies (Sept 2014 Ref 140143)
● Governing Bodies must ensure they comply with their safeguarding
duties under legislation
● Must ensure policies, procedures are effective and comply with the
law at all times
● There must be procedures in place to make a referral to the
Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS)
● It is the Governing Body’s responsibility to ensure that safe
recruitment checks are carried out in line with statutory requirements
● Schools and colleges must keep a single central record of checks
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Governing bodies should prevent people who
pose a risk of harm from working with children by:
● Making sure that there are procedures in place to handle allegations
against other children
● Putting in place appropriate safeguarding responses to children who
go missing from education settings, particularly on repeat occasions
● Governing bodies must appoint a designated teacher to promote the
educational achievement of children who are looked after and ensure
this person has appropriate training. Governing bodies proprietors
should ensure that staff have the skills, knowledge and understanding
necessary to keep looked after children safe
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How can the GB monitor the effectiveness of the
School’s arrangements for behaviour and safety?
• Activity
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How can the GB monitor the effectiveness of the
School’s arrangements for behaviour and safety?
• The Governing Body should ensure that:
• It remedies without delay any deficiencies or weaknesses
in regard to child protection arrangements
• Has nominated a governor to be responsible for liaising
with the LA in the event of allegations of abuse against the
Headteacher and to liaise with and receive feedback from
the DCPO
• Reviews its policies annually
• Key members of GB are safer recruitment trained
• Terms of Reference of its Resources Committee include
responsibility for health and safety and governors are
accurately aware of risk assessments and vulnerabilities
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How can the GB monitor the effectiveness of the
School’s arrangements for behaviour and safety?
• Scrutiny of documentation might include:
• Scrutiny of policies against a checklist
• Evidence of staff training relevant to
safeguarding
• Evidence that the school has clear systems for
recording incidents, issues and concerns about
children’s well-being, the actions taken and the
agreements with other services
• Scrutiny of the SCR (eg your schools proforma)
• Scrutiny of recruitment procedures
• Scrutiny of risk assessments and of incident
logs, fire drill records
• Behaviour logs including separate identification
of racist and other prejudice-related bullying
incidents
• Recording of every incident where restraint /
physical intervention has been used
• Exclusions data
• Attendance data and school leaders’ analysis
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How can the GB monitor the effectiveness of the
School’s arrangements for behaviour and safety?
GB monitoring activities might include:
● Regular health and safety walks around the site with HT
and site manager
● Listening to pupil and parent ‘voice’ about bullying, safety,
the curriculum
● Talk to children who are newer arrivals at the school
● Sampling the awareness and knowledge of staff
● Visits at lunchtimes to the playground & canteen (and visiting
places where children have said they don’t feel safe)
● Visits to classrooms accompanied by a senior leader with
a behaviour for learning focus
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How can the GB monitor the effectiveness of the
School’s arrangements for behaviour and safety?
Reporting arrangements might include:
● Regular meetings: designated governor and DCP lead
● Termly reports to the relevant GB committee:
- compliance with statutory requirements / guidance
- DCP evaluation of casework and outcomes for individual
pupils
● Reports from key staff eg behaviour management and its
impact, racist incidents and follow up, attendance issues
and impact of school actions
● Management of transition, particularly for vulnerable
pupils, from one key stage to another & from one school to
another
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