Ofsted adopts the definition of safeguarding used in the Children Act 2004 and in the Department for Education and Skills (now DfE) guidance document Working together to safeguard children, which focuses on safeguarding and promoting children’s and learners’ welfare.
This can be summarised as:
- protecting children and learners from maltreatment
- preventing impairment of children’s and learners’ health or development
- ensuring that children and learners are growing up in circumstances consistent with the provision of safe and effective care
- undertaking that role so as to enable those children and learners to have optimum life chances and to enter adulthood successfully.
In order to ensure that best practice is maintained, our policies are reviewed at least regularly to incorporate the latest statutory guidance emerge. If you would like more information on safeguarding, please contact the school for all our policies or view our policies section on our website.
In conjunction with Sunderland City Council and Northumbria Police, St Mary’s RC Primary School is involved in a new initiative called Operation Encompass. The purpose of Operation Encompass is to safeguard and support children and young people who have been involved in, heard or witnessed a domestic abuse incident. Following such an incident, children will often arrive at school distressed, upset, worried and unprepared. Operation Encompass aims to ensure that appropriate school staff (called Key Adults) are made aware early enough to support children and young people in a way that means they feel safe and included.
At St Mary’s our Key Adults are:
- Mr M Clephane – Headteacher & Designated Safeguarding Lead (DSL)
- Mrs C Clinton – Safeguarding Deputy DSL,
- Mrs S Duffy – Safeguarding Deputy DSL
This is a valuable initiative that means we can continue to support and help children and families within our school community when they need it the most. You can find our more by visiting Operation Encompass or by contacting one of our key adults.
Sunderland Safeguarding Children Board (SSCB) are supporting the NSPCC’s ‘Underwear Rule’ – PANTS campaign and we hope everyone in Sunderland will join us to protect our children and young people from sexual abuse. All the PANTS materials are available to download, free of charge, from the NSPCC website.