Ridgeway Farm CE Academy is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and expects all staff and volunteers to share this commitment.
Safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children is defined as:
- protecting children from maltreatment;
- preventing impairment of children’s mental and physical health or development;
- ensuring that children grow up in circumstances consistent with the provision of safe and effective care; and
- taking action to enable all children to have the best outcomes.
All adults working in our school maintain an attitude of ' it could happen here'. We recognise that staff, because of their contact with and knowledge of children in their care, are well placed to identify abuse or neglect and offer support to children in need
We have a number of policies and procedures in place that contribute to our safeguarding commitment, including our Safeguarding and Child Protection Policy which can be viewed in the Policies section of our website or by following the link below.
We will contact parents/carers should safeguarding concerns arise about their child, unless to do so would increase the risk of harm to the child. In this instance, we take further advice and guidance from our children’s social care team.
Record Keeping
We maintain contemporaneous records of all safeguarding and child protection concerns, actions and communications.
We work in line with the DfE statutory guidance ‘Keeping Children Safe In Education’ and follow the information-sharing guidance included in this document and in ‘Information-sharing : advice for practitioners providing safeguarding services to children, young people, parents and carers.’
In school we use the CPOMS system for the recording of incidents.
Sometimes we may need to share information and work in partnership with other agencies when there are concerns about a child's welfare. We will ensure that our concerns about our pupils are discussed with his/her parents/carers first unless we have reason to believe that such a move would be contrary to the child's welfare.
We actively support the Government's Prevent Agenda to counter radicalism and extremism.
Our Safeguarding Team
Our designated safeguarding lead (DSL) is Mrs Laura Gibbard
The deputy DSLs are:
Mrs K Holder
Mrs Katy Mann.
Our Nominated Safeguarding governor is Mrs Bev Kauppinen
AWAITING IMAGE
Blue Kite Academy Trust is committed to safeguarding, safer recruiting practice and promoting the welfare of children, young people and vulnerable adults and expects all staff, visitors and volunteers to share this commitment. You will be expected to report any concerns relating to the safeguarding of children, young people or vulnerable adults in accordance with agreed procedures. If your own conduct in relation to the safeguarding of children, young people or vulnerable adults gives cause for concern, the Blue Kite Academy Trust Allegations Management Procedure will be followed, alongside implementation of the Diciplinary Procedure as required.
Online Safety
Keeping safe online is a vital part of safeguarding the pupils at Ridgeway Farm CE Academy. We are currently establishing our online safety page that will tell parents how they help support the work we do in school in this area and to help teach their children basic online safety at home.
Extremism and Radicalisation
It is vital that staff and parents are aware of the possible danger of extremism and radicalisation of children, predominantly but not solely through online activities. We are committed to supporting parents and pupils to be aware of these dangers. Whole school staff training is carried out annually.
PREVENT
Prevent is about safeguarding people and communities from the threat of terrorism. Prevent is 1 of the 4 elements of CONTEST, the Government’s counter-terrorism strategy. It aims to stop people becoming terrorists or supporting terrorism.
The Prevent strategy:
- Responds to the ideological challenge we face from terrorism and aspects of extremism, and the threat we face from those who promote these views;
- Provides practical help to prevent people from being drawn into terrorism and ensure they are given appropriate advice and support; and
- Works with a wide range of sectors (including education, criminal justice, faith, charities, online and health) where there are risks of radicalisation that we need to deal with.
Blue Kite Academy Trust Safeguarding Statement can be found on the Blue Kite Policy page. Please click HERE to access this page.
Other useful contact numbers
NSPCC 0808 800 5000
Child Exploitation and Online Protection Command 0370 496 7622 – for reporting concerns about online abuse
Childline 0800 1111
