Safeguarding
The safety of children at Georgeham is of paramount importance to us. We are committed to ensuring that all members of our school community will flourish in a safe and happy learning environment.
The Designated Safeguarding staff at school are: Kevin Fry (DSL), Emma Hill (Deputy DSL) and Lucy Rinvolucri (Deputy DSL).
All our staff and governors have had specific training and are proficient in all aspects of Child Protection. We also have a designated child protection officer and two deputies. They are all fully trained in current child protection practices and are responsible for child protection throughout the school.
Our school environment is regularly monitored to ensure the right balance between managed risk and safety. Through our PSHE programme, we teach the children about safety and how to recognise the ‘danger-signs’ of feeling unsafe. We make sure that all children know and can talk about the people in school they can turn to if they feel unsafe.
We work closely with outside agencies whenever there are concerns and we follow strict protocols for reporting Safeguarding issues. We are legally bound to refer Child Protection concerns to Devon’s Safeguarding Hub / Social Care. We may inform parents of our concerns before we make phone calls, however there are occasions when a referral has to be made without informing the family beforehand.
Georgeham CofE Primary School Safeguarding Policy 2024-25
How to report a concern
CEOP (Child Exploitation Online Protection Centre) helps to keep children safe from sexual abuse and grooming online. They are able to help and give advice. You can also make a report directly to them if something has happened online which has made you feel unsafe, scared or worried. www.ceop.gov.uk.
Childline provides a free, private and confidential service for advice and support online and over the phone on 0800 1111
Anonymously and confidentially report child sexual abuse content and non-photographic child sexual abuse images via the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) via https://report.iwf.org.uk/en.
Online content which incites hatred on the grounds of race, religion, disability, sexual orientation or gender can be reported to True Vision at www.report-it.org.uk.
You can report online terrorism related content to the police’s Counter Terrorism Internet Referral Unit at www.gov.uk/report-terrorism.
Further support and advice can be gained by accessing Devon’s Safeguarding Board’s website
You can also talk to an advisor by calling Devon’s Safeguarding Hub on 0345 155 1071
Concerns can also be discussed with our Designated Safeguarding Leads.
Operation Encompass
Operation Encompass (link) is a national early intervention safeguarding partnership between Police and Education which supports children and young people exposed to domestic abuse.
This partnership ensures that the local police force contacts the school prior to the start of the next school day, when a child or young person has been exposed to, or involved in, any domestic incident so that schools can make sure that specific and tailored provision is put in place before the child and family arrive at school the next morning.
How to Keep Children Safe Online: E-Safety
It is crucial that children learn to balance the benefits offered by technology with a critical awareness of their own and other’s online behaviour, and develop effective strategies for staying safe and making a positive contribution online, this forms an important part of our curriculum.
Things you can do at home
Being safe online isn’t just about telling a child not to chat with a stranger, or not to give away personal information, it’s also about controlling what a child has access to. There’s some good content out there (“How do you make slime?”) but there’s also an awful lot of content I’m sure you don’t want your child to stumble across. And it really is only one or two clicks away.
Advice about setting up parental controls can be found here.
Sexual Behaviour
Knowing how to recognise and respond to age appropriate behaviours in children helps to support the development of healthy sexual behaviour and protect children from harm or abuse.
The best thing we can do here is to direct you to Parents Protect, a website full of resources on many and various aspects, including what’s considered to be normal behaviour, sexting and social networking.
You may want to click through to these helpful documents that we’ve downloaded for you…
The Underwear Rule
The Underwear Rule, is great to share with children from a young age. It was established by the NSPCC, to support children to understand the important message that their body belongs to them and they should tell an adult if they’re upset or worried. PANTS is an acronym to help children remember the rules of their body and to share their worries, it helps facilitate conversations between adults and children regarding this sensitive matter:
P – Privates are private
A – Always remember your body belongs to you
N – No means No
T – Talk about secrets that upset you
S – Speak up, someone can help.
Please read the parent and child’s leaflets below:
The Underwear Rule – Parents Guide
The Underwear Rule – Information for Children
The Pantosaurus video is a good starting point to discuss this matter at home. We also recommend the book, I said No by Zack and Kimberly King, and My Underpants Rule by Kate and Rod Power, as well as associated YouTube clips.
Prevent Duty
The Prevent duty states that all schools have to have due regard to preventing people being drawn into terrorism.
In order to protect our children we, and you, must be alert to any reason for concern in the child’s life at home or elsewhere. This includes an awareness of the expression of extremist views. The government has defined extremism in the Prevent strategy as: “vocal or active opposition to fundamental British Values, including democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty and mutual respect and tolerance of different faiths and beliefs.”
British Values are a set of four values introduced to help keep children safe and promote their welfare and they are firmly embedded in the work that we carry out at school.
- Democracy: making decisions together, for example giving opportunities to develop enquiring minds in an atmosphere where questions are valued.
- Rule of law: understanding that rules matter, as cited in our PSHE (Personal, Social, Health and Emotional) and our SMSC (Spiritual, Moral, Social and Cultural) programmes of study, and also our SEAL (Social and Emotional Aspects of Learning) programme, that all helps our children to understand and create rules and codes of behaviour.
- Individual liberty: freedom for all, for example reflecting on their differences and understanding that we are free to have opinions that may be different to others.
- Mutual respect and tolerance: treat others as you want to be treated, for example sharing and respecting other’s opinions.
This prevention forms part of our safeguarding of the children in our school and our school policy on safeguarding can be found on our Policies page.
You can also find advice on the Devon and Cornwall Police website
If you would like to discuss any of this, please contact the school and arrange a conversation with Mr Fry
