What is safeguarding?

St Barnabas CEVC Primary School is committed to ensuring all our pupils feel safe and well cared for, and to providing a secure school environment for learners, staff, parents/carers and other visitors.

The school takes student welfare and safety very seriously, and takes action to reduce all kinds of harm including: abuse, bullying, discrimination and avoidable injuries. 

We also promote a culture where children and adults feel confident to share their concerns about their own or others’ safety and wellbeing.

All staff receive regular safeguarding training, and we continue to ensure that our staff, governors, parents/carers and students work together to keep children safe.

The school’s safeguarding leads are Lindsay Clough (Safeguarding Lead), Alexandra Young, Janice Thacker, Dawn Mason and Carolyn Coakley (Deputy Safeguarding Leads), who can be contacted on 01380 813436 and head@st-barnabas.wilts.sch.uk  If you are concerned about the immediate safety or well being of a student, please call or email.

If you believe that a child is in imminent danger, please contact the police. Dial 999.

For more details on how we safeguard students at St Barnabas CEVC Primary School, to read our Safeguarding and Child Protection policy. Click here.

Keeping Safe

At St Barnabas CEVC Primary School we do a lot of work on supporting our children in aiming to keep themselves safe in our world.

Our curriculum contains input on:

• Road Safety
• Online Safety
• Relationships and trusted adults
• Valuing Difference
• Keeping Myself Safe
• Being My Best
• Growing and Changing

We link with other agencies such as our local PCSO and others who can support us in delivering clear messages of actions our children can take to keep themselves safe.

We record all incidents which concern us and inform parents / carers and multi-agencies as necessary and in line with our Safeguarding Policy. 

If you are worried about a child, what might you be worried about? 

What is child abuse and neglect?

Some abuse may happen because parents, carers or other adults act in ways which harm children. Other kinds of abuse occur when adults fail to take action to protect children or fail to meet a child’s basic needs.

There are four main types of abuse:

Physical Abuse
This may involve hurting or injuring a child by hitting, shaking, poisoning, burning, scalding, drowning, suffocating or otherwise causing physical harm to a child.

Emotional Abuse
Persistent emotional ill treatment of a child. It may involve telling children that they are worthless or unloved, inadequate, or valued only insofar as they meet the needs of another person.

Sexual Abuse
Forcing or enticing a child or young person to take part in sexual activities, whether or not the child is aware of what is happening. It may also include non-contact activities such as involving children in inappropriate sexual activities.

Neglect
Persistent failure to meet a child’s basic physical and/or psychological needs, which is likely to result in the serious impairment of the child’s health or development.

Witnessing domestic abuse is also harmful to children.

What might make you concerned?

There are many possible signs of abuse ranging from physical injury to changes in behaviour.  In some cases a child may tell you that they are being harmed. Alternatively you may witness an incident either between a parent and a child or a professional or volunteer working with children, which causes you to be concerned.

What to do if you are concerned about a child?

Adults have a responsibility to share any concerns they have, even when they may have some doubts as to whether a child is being harmed.
If you are concerned about a child speak to someone. This might be a health visitor, nursery staff, teacher, family doctor, social worker or police officer. 

You can contact the school, via the link shared above. Alternatively, or outside of school hours, the following links might be helpful. 

For the NSPCC, please click here.

For Childline, please click here. 

Online safeguarding

If you are worried about something online or something involving you online, you can report it here.

For reporting terrorist or extremist material online, please click here to report.

If you suspect Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) of a child please inform the police. If you have concerns around risk, please inform the school Safeguarding Team or the Wiltshire Safeguarding Team by calling 0300 4560108 or via the details on their website here.

 St Barnabas CEVC Primary School is committed to safeguarding children. We work closely with all multi-agencies to ensure that children are protected from risk of emotional and physical harm or risk of harm, or at risk from neglect. We follow stringent procedures for the recruitment of staff and for visitors entering our school. Our site is monitored by CCTV and there is a high staff presence at all times in the school day. We also have regular patrols by our local police.

Domestic abuse - Operation Encompass

At St Barnabas we are working in partnership with the Wiltshire Police and Children’s Services to identify and provide appropriate support to pupils who have experienced domestic incidents; this scheme is called Operation Encompass.

The purpose of Operation Encompass is to safeguard and support children and young people who have been involved in, or witness to a domestic incident. Domestic abuse impacts on children in a number of ways. Children are at increased risk of physical injury during an incident, either by accident or because they attempt to intervene. Even when not directly injured, children are greatly distressed by witnessing the physical and emotional suffering of a parent. To find out more about what is considered to be a domestic incident please take a look at the guidance from Wiltshire Police on their website: 

https://www.wiltshire.police.uk/advice/advice-and-information/daa/domestic-abuse/

Operation Encompass has been created to highlight this situation. It is the implementation of key partnership working between the police and schools. The aim of sharing information with local schools is to allow key adults i.e. DSL or Deputy DSL the opportunity of engaging with the child and to provide access to support that allows them to remain in a safe but secure familiar environment. 

In order to achieve this, the Multi-Agency Safeguarding Hub (MASH) will notify us of all domestic incidents where one or more of our pupils has been present, to the Designated Safeguarding Lead(s) (DSL) via an online notification system.  On receipt of any information, the DSL will decide on the appropriate support the child requires, this should be covert dependent on the needs and wishes of the child.  All information sharing and resulting actions will be undertaken in accordance with the Wiltshire Police and MASH Encompass Protocol Data Sharing Agreement.  We will record this information and store this information in accordance with the record keeping procedures outlined in this policy.

Key Safeguarding Information

St Barnabas policies and procedures to keep the children in our care safe

REPORT REMOVE

Report Remove is here to help young people under 18 in the UK to confidentially report sexual images and videos of themselves and remove them from the internet.

HOW REPORT REMOVE WORKS

Having your nudes shared can feel scary, and it can leave you feeling worried or even ashamed. But it’s not your fault. 

It’s against the law for anyone to share a sexual image or video of someone who’s under 18, and we’re working with the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) and Yoti to help you remove any sexual image or video of you that’s online. 

Report Remove is safe, easy and free – all you need to do is follow these steps: 

• choose your age range
• create a Childline account so we can send you updates on your report
• report your image or video to the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF)
• talk to a Childline counsellor if you want any extra support, or access support on the Childline website 
• check your Childline locker a few days after your report to see if you need to add any more information and to see updates on your report 
• report any issues with this process by sending an email from your Childline locker with the subject 'Report Remove' and as much information about the problem as you can. 

Useful Websites