Safeguarding at South Gosforth First School
Ensuring that your child feels safe and secure is our number one priority at South Gosforth First School. All staff, both teaching and non-teaching, receive regular training to make sure they have an up to date knowledge of current safeguarding best practice in schools. This includes studying and learning from ‘serious case reviews’. Training is provided by Clennell Education Solutions: www.clennelleducationsolutions.co.uk and by the Designated Safeguarding Leader (Head Teacher - Mr Robert Adams). Members of the governing body, the Head Teacher and Deputy Safeguarding Leaders (Deputy Head Teacher – Miss Rachael Blackburn) also receive regular ‘safer recruitment’ training to ensure that the selection process to recruit new members of staff includes important safeguarding checks. The latest safeguarding practices and training are also regularly shared in weekly staff briefings in order to ensure that all members of staff are fully up to date with the latest protocols and procedures.
As a school dedicated to meeting the needs of all children we welcome the responsibilities placed upon us to safeguard and promote the welfare of all of our pupils as laid out in ‘Keeping Children Safe in Education’ (September 2021). We are mindful of the welfare of our children at all times and contact the appropriate agencies if we have specific concerns. We always seek to maintain open communication with parents and carers in these instances where we feel that this is appropriate, however, we reserve our rights as professionals to report concerns to any relevant bodies without initially informing parents and carers if we feel that this would jeopardise the safety of the child.
'Operation Encompass'
South Gosforth First School uses the services of 'Operation Encompass', a unique Police and Education early intervention safeguarding partnership, which supports children and young people exposed to domestic abuse.
Members of the 'Operation Encompass' team come in to our school throughout the academic year to work with classes and deliver sessions which help our pupils to understand signs of danger and educate them on what they should do if they don't feel safe.
As well as this, 'Operation Encompass' also provide a service to report to schools before the start of the next school day if a child or young person has been involved in or exposed to a domestic abuse incident the previous evening and the police have been called. The information is given in strictest confidence to the Designated Safeguarding Lead in school (Mr Adams) in order to enable school to put appropriate support in place for the child.
Online Safety and School Filtering System
At South Gosforth First School we believe that supporting the safeguarding of children applies to many different areas of their life.
In the modern age in which we live in, many people, including children, have access to the internet and the wealth of information which it provides. Our pupils use the internet in school for educational purposes - as part of our computing curriculum (which includes online safety) but also across our wider curriculum in order to research information about a particular subject, or to access online educational games which support and enhance their learning experiences.
In order to keep our children safe when they are online, we use a filtering system called 'Senso'. 'Senso' is industry leading software which is updated on a nightly basis and blocks access to inappropriate content on our school computer system. It also will flag if our pupils use a search term which is a cause for concern or inappropriate. This filtering system can be modified on a school-by-school basis and all internet access from both pupils and staff is logged.
Our Designated Safeguarding Lead (Mr Adams), Deputy Safeguarding Lead (Miss Blackburn) and School Business Manager (Mrs Valentine) will receive an instant notification if anyone in school uses a search term which is a cause for concern, or is deemed to be unacceptable from a safeguarding point of view. We are then able to act upon these instances as a matter of urgency, taking an appropriate course of action, which often involves parents and carers (please see our flowchart of key actions in our Online Safety and Acceptable Use Policy). The Designated Safeguarding Lead also receives a weekly filtering report from 'Senso' which summarises internet use in school during that week across all year groups.
By sending your child to South Gosforth First School, you thereby agree to us using the 'Senso' filtering system to monitor your child's use of the internet in order to keep them safe online.
To read the all of school's policies relating to safeguarding and child protection, please visit the 'Policies' section of our school website.
