Safeguarding in schools
The safeguarding lead is one of the most important roles in a school and will be integrated into a job description. It is their responsibility to promote a whole-school culture of safeguarding and listening to children.
Everyone working or volunteering in a school should be aware of the importance of the role of the safeguarding lead. Their role is very broad and bound by statutory guidance. They take lead responsibility for safeguarding and child protection, embedding them into everything their school does. The safeguarding lead should have a clear understanding of the safeguarding challenges in the local area and how they may affect children and young people.
Governing bodies have a strategic leadership responsibility for their school’s safeguarding arrangements and must comply with their duties under legislation. They must also ensure that policies, procedures and training in their schools are effective, staff are aware of their safeguarding responsibilities, remain vigilant and will take action should they need to through the reporting systems in place for staff, volunteers, parents and pupils.
Governing bodies and proprietors, working with their senior leadership teams and especially their safeguarding lead are key in implementing safeguarding within the school.
The safeguarding arrangements within a school should include:
-
Safe and effective staff recruitment systems
-
Effective policies, procedures and protocols to keep students safe
-
Good record keeping and information sharing
-
Competent staff working together
-
Trust and openness with students, staff and parents
Staff recruitment and induction training
Safer recruitment training should be implemented to ensure potential recruits are checked before coming into contact with children.
All staff must undergo safeguarding and child protection training at induction. You should ensure that training is regularly updated and in line with national and local requirements.
Induction training should include:
Equality and diversity training
Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) training
There is a mandatory reporting duty on FGM which requires regulated health and social care professionals and teachers in England and Wales to report ‘known’ cases of FGM in under 18s which they identify in the course of their professional work to the police.
The Prevent duty
The Prevent duty stipulates that: as a minimum “schools should ensure that the Designated Safeguarding Lead undertakes Prevent awareness training and is able to provide advice and support to other members of staff on protecting children from the risk of radicalisation.”
Data protection training
The Data Protection Act 2018 is the main law in the UK. You may also have heard of the General Data Protection Regulation or GDPR. This is a European Union law which, following Brexit, has been fully transposed into UK law as the UK GDPR. The laws set out the main data protection obligations for schools and other organisations in the UK. All organisations will have to show their record keeping is compliant.
Your school will have its own induction policy with regards to health and safety training and fire safety training.
Ongoing staff training
All staff should receive regular safeguarding and child protection updates (for example, via email, e-bulletins, staff meetings) as required, and at least annually, to provide them with the relevant skills and knowledge to safeguard children effectively.
When it comes to staff training, here are five key questions leaders should ask:
-
Do staff have the right training, skills, knowledge and experience to do their job?
-
How are learning needs identified?
-
What training has been delivered to staff?
-
How are staff supported and managed?
-
How is the effectiveness of staff safeguarding training monitored?
Get all the staff training you need – in one package
You can provide your whole school community with unlimited access to all the training you need to remain compliant and demonstrate best practice with our online safeguarding and duty of care training package, Tes Safeguarding, powered by EduCare. Available on our training platform Develop, it also gives you access to our robust reporting suite to monitor learning and evidence training to inspectors.
To learn more about how Tes Safeguarding can benefit your school or to arrange a free trial, get in touch with us today.
