Safeguarding

Safeguarding Lead and Deputies

Lead – Michael Schumm (Headteacher)

Deputy Lead – Sally Bouwman (Assistant Head & SENCO)

Deputy Lead – Declan Gane (Year 6 teacher and KS2 Maths Lead)

 

St Stephen’s continues to treat safeguarding as a high priority to ensure the safety, health and well-being of all children, staff and visitors is given due consideration.

The Single Central Record (SCR) is a document maintained by the school to demonstrate that staff have undergone appropriate recruitment and police checks. The SCR is updated as and when new staff are recruited and when they leave their service at St Stephen’s. Governors, volunteers and regular visitors to the school are also recorded on the SCR.

Visitors to the school are required to sign in at the main reception area and are issued with a visitors badge and safeguarding leaflet. Visitors who do not have appropriate DBS (Disclosure & Barring Service) clearance will not have sole access to children. Regular volunteers are given appropriate Safeguarding Training before they begin working with children.

All staff are aware of the Safeguarding lead and deputies and of the processes to report ANY concerns regarding Child Protection/Safeguarding, even if the issue seems ‘low level’. We use the CPOMs system to ensure that any and all concerns are logged and recorded to make sure that nothing is missed or disregarded and that trends or clues are not missed. The school follows Social Services advice with regards to referrals and information sharing.

Child Protection training is provided regularly for existing staff and forms part of the induction process for all newly appointed staff. Safeguarding Team attend briefings and further training organised by the Local Authority Designated Officer (LADO) to receive up to date local information about child protection and safeguarding issues, as well as training and conferences provided by experts in the field including the NSPCC and the DfE.

All staff are familiar with the DfE Keeping Children Safe in Education document which forms the basis of our Child Protection & Safeguarding Policy. The full document can be accessed by clicking here. You may also wish to view the current Working Together to Safeguard Children guidance.

Please click on the link to view the current St Stephen’s Child Protection & Safeguarding Policy. This was updated in September 2022 in line with revisions to the Keeping Children Safe in Education guidance.

Computer Safety – more information about keeping children safe whilst using technology can be found here , here  and here

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Parents can also access information to support their children and families via these websites:

NSPCC

ThinkUKnow

PACE (Parents Against Child Exploitation)

Clever Never Goes