How do you recognise when a child is experiencing abuse, and what do you do if you think a pupil may be a victim? Sarah Farley offers guidance. It is the end of term. The classrooms are deserted, the staffroom is almost empty. Out in the playground you see a lone child. Stirred by the look of unhappiness on his face, you go out to see what is wrong and find a 12-year-old who had been unusually difficult in class today. His evasive answers convey a distinct reluctance to go home. Why? What do you do? Is it any of your business?

Note that the staffroom is “almost” empty. Still beavering away is an experienced and approachable deputy head teacher who says “Don’t worry, it’s because he has to explain away another lost jumper to his Mum,” or “Oh dear, I think it may be because his parents are splitting up,” or “Is he? That ties in with something else I heard about him today. We had better look into this. The school policy states that. . .”.

Child abuse, or child protection, as the agencies emphasising the positive aspects term it, is a side of school life that is of such seriousness for all concerned that, once ignited, it can consume all around it. It can emotionally, psychologically or physically damage children for life; it can split up families; it can send people to prison; it can wreck a teacher’s career.

Teachers, especially in primary or special schools, often spend as much time if not more with children than parents do. They are in a prime position to observe personality changes or the marks of abuse and to receive confidences. Yet they are educators, not social workers or doctors or the police, and the anxieties surrounding whether to set in motion a process that could overwhelm so many lives, including their own, provoke a dilemma that taxes experienced teachers as much as new recruits.

Some colleges are including training in child protection procedures but the time devoted to the area varies a good deal. Local education authorities produce guidelines on procedure, training opportunities and material for new recruits. Organisations concerned with children’s welfare provide information and advice. It is usually up to schools to decide what approach they will take and who is responsible for child protection.

“The ‘responsible person’ might be the head or a deputy, depending on the type and size of school,” says Colin Merry, Lincolnshire Education Department’s designated child protection officer. “Their responsibility will be to ensure that induction courses include informing new teachers about the school’s policy and procedure, and they are the person to whom any suspicion of child abuse should be reported.”

To help teachers identify indicators of child abuse, Lincolnshire Area Child Protection Committee has produced a pocket-sized card. The headings categorise abuse under physical, emotional, sexual, neglect and general risk indicators. Many of the conditions may seem nebulous taken in isolation, or very similar to normal children’s behaviour: “reluctance to discuss injuries” is a common bravado with some children while others show you every scratch.

“Excessive tiredness” or “unexplained abdominal pain” make frequent appearances in the classroom, and “wetting” is probably more common than is generally acknowledged. So when do you press the panic button?

“Sometimes the signs are obvious, such as bruises that your experience tells you are not consistent with a child’s normal rough and tumble existence, or a display of affection in a sexual way that is inappropriate to their age, ” says Colin Merry. “But at other times, you may feel that your suspicions are rather vague, that you don’t really have any evidence of abuse. Our advice is that you share your concern with the ‘responsible person’ or a colleague.”

“You are only seeing your piece of information in isolation,” he points out, “and it may be that your fears are unfounded and there is another explanation for the behaviour. But it also may be one of several reports about that child the playground supervisor may have mentioned something, there may have been other bruises reported by other staff, or the local beat bobby may have suggested an eye is kept on the child. Your knowledge of the child and a change in their personality is another piece of the picture.”

If your concerns are not explained away by a simple “Oh yes, its probably because her rabbit died”, there is a contractual obligation for the “responsible person” to inform the statutory protective services within a timescale set by the Code of Practice Directory for the area. The services can be Social Services (the duty social worker), the NSPCC, or the police.

The “responsible person” should also contact the local Child Protection Register, a procedure known as “interrogating the Register”. If the Register is interrogated a certain number of times by concerned agencies, it triggers an investigation, even though each interrogation may not seem very serious considered on its own.

The teacher who voiced the initial concern about the child may or may not be involved from then on. If it is felt the child would be reassured by the teacher’s presence, or the teacher has special knowledge to contribute, they will be included in the conference. They will certainly have to provide a written report and should keep a log of incidents and suspicions, from the very first niggle of anxiety.

Not every case of child abuse reaches the distressing stages of prosecution. “Many cases do not even reach the case conference stage,” says Colin Merry. “Often the best course of action for the child is down another route, perhaps by helping the parents with child care, or marriage guidance. There are different sorts of support that may be more appropriate.”

But even if the teacher’s fears are found to be groundless, they should not blame themselves for raising the alarm. “Teachers are in the most difficult of situations,” says Michele Elliott, director of Kidscape, a charity concerned with helping children and their carers learn how to keep them safe. “In schools, there should be no doubt of the support that teachers will still have even if allegations of child abuse are not upheld.”

“Sometimes a child will confide in a teacher, but later refuse to admit what they have said and the case is dropped. The teacher may then know that the abuse is continuing and feel they could have done more to encourage the child, but I have known cases where years later, the case does come to court, and the person concerned says that the fact that their teacher believed them years ago helped them now.”

Michele Elliott warns that a teacher’s antennae should twitch immediately a child says: “Will you promise not to tell anyone if I tell you a secret?”. “Never, never promise not to tell,” she says. “Say instead that there are some secrets you can keep, but if it’s a secret that makes you worried about their safety, then you will have to tell someone else. You have to hope they will still tell you. If they don’t, you can still share your concern with a colleague, and watch the child carefully in future. Maybe the secret was that their Mum is having a baby and they have been told not to tell yet.”

There is another aspect of child abuse which particularly concerns professionals working with children: you suspect a colleague of abusing a child, or a child confides that they have been abused by a teacher, or, the most nightmarish of all, you yourself are accused of child abuse. Whether true or not, all three possibilities will involve you in circumstances that could bring misery to the child, you and the school.

“In the case of a member of staff allegedly abusing a child, the head teacher must be informed immediately, and in Lincolnshire’s case, I, as the Education Department’s Child Protection Officer, must be contacted immediately, before any attempt is made to investigate the allegations. The local authority has two roles in a case: one is to support the member of staff, the other to protect the child. Both will be given support, but the protection of the child has to be paramount.”

The child protection agencies maintain that cases of “malicious allegation” are rare, but there are stories, such as that of a teacher who broke up a fight between three boys. Two of them accused her of hitting them, she was immediately suspended for six months before being acquitted, but she felt unable to carry on teaching.

What do you do if you see two bruisers beating the living daylights out of some poor little fellow? Do you run for help and someone to corroborate your story, perhaps leaving the lad to be dangerously hurt? Or do you move in and put your career on the line?

You are allowed to use “reasonable” force to restrain children in such circumstances but you are strongly advised to write out a report of the incident, dated and, if possible, witnessed. “The best way of handling such situations is to be aware of possible misinterpretations,” says Colin Merry.

“Once, when I was teaching, a teenage girl came up clutching her skirt above her thigh because she had fallen over and grazed it badly. There was only me and a male colleague left in the school, so we all went to get the first aid box. My colleague was about to dab her leg with cotton wool but I suggested she might prefer to clean it herself. How would it have sounded if she had gone home to her parents and said, in all innocence, ‘Mr So-and-so was touching my leg’?” Michele Elliott recommends that teachers are never alone with children but agrees this is sometimes unrealistic. Instead Colin Merry suggests you go to lengths to ensure there is no suggestion of secrecy on your part: “Leave the door open, do not tell other staff you are not to be disturbed, rather tell them you are seeing X or Y to discuss such and such.”

We hope by creating a framework for schools to operate within, with an emphasis on child protection and dealing effectively with problems as they emerge, we can help teachers and children combat the distressing nature of such cases with least damage to all involved.”

o Further information from: National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, National Centre, 42 Curtain Road, London EC2A 3NH. Tel: 0171 825 2500 Operates the NSPCC National Child Protection Helpline offering counselling and advice for adults and children. Offers training and publications including Protecting Children: A guide for Teachers on Child Abuse Pounds 2.00 plus sae.

Childline, Freepost 1111, London N1 0BR. Tel: 0800 1111. Provides free 24-hour telephone counselling for children and young people. Poster and other material: Tel: 0171 234 1000.

Kidscape, 152 Buckingham Palace Road, London SW1W 9TR. Tel: 0171 730 3300. Aims to prevent sexual abuse and bullying through education programmes involving teachers, other child care professionals and parents. Produces teaching material and holds training courses. Send large sae for Information Pack.

National Children’s Bureau, 8 Wakley Street, London EC1V 7QE. Tel: 0171 843 6000. Publishes a guide to training materials for teachers, including readily available training resources: Protecting Children: A Guide to Developing Child Protection Training in Schools. Pounds 6 plus Pounds 1.50 pp.