Safeguarding

Safeguarding Children at Wallsend St Peter’s C of E Primary School

St Peter’s fully recognises the responsibility it has to have arrangements about safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children.

We take a range of actions to ensure that children are safe:

§ All staff are subject to a criminal records bureau enhanced disclosure

§ We check the identity information for all visiting teaching staff and other professionals

§ The school building has secured entrances and exits

§ All personnel wear identity badges and visitors are required to sign in

§ We have a regularly reviewed child protection policy

§ The Head Teacher is the school’s nominated child protection officer, with three deputies in this role

§ Risk assessments are undertaken for all educational visits and are completed for all areas of the school premises

We comply with the Local Authority’s policies and procedures around safe practices for Health and Safety.

With this in mind, we respectfully ask parents to only access school buildings via the main school office. If you have an appointment to meet with a member of staff, please sign in at the school office and you will be escorted to the appropriate room.

Designated Safeguarding Lead:

Miss Bilton - Head Teacher

Designated Safeguarding Deputies:

Mrs Elliott

Mrs Philips 

Miss McFarlane

The statutory responsibilities are noted within the following legislation:

Section 175 of the Education Act 2002 states;

• a local education authority shall make arrangements for ensuring that the functions conferred on them in their capacity as a local education authority are exercised with a view to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children
• schools and Further Education (FE) institutions/ colleges should give effect to their duty to safeguard and promote the welfare of their pupils
• the governing body of a maintained school must make arrangements for ensuring that functions relating to the conduct of the school are exercised with a view to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children who are pupils at the school
• an authority or body …must have regard to any guidance given from time to time by the Secretary of State

Maintained school means a community, foundation or voluntary school, a community or foundation special school or a maintained nursery school. The Education Act 2002 does not specifically refer to Academies; however this duty is equally placed onto Academies by subsequent updated legislation.

This legislation makes child protection responsibilities clear and places an obligation on schools to ensure that these responsibilities are met in full.

Child means a person under the age of eighteen.

Keeping Children Safe in Education (Sept 2018) outlines:

Safeguarding and promoting children’s welfare is everyone’s responsibility and includes providing a safe environment in which children can learn. Everyone who comes in to contact with children and their families/carers has a role, to play in safeguarding children. All school staff are particularly important as they are in a position to identify concerns early and provide help for children and prevent escalation. Early Help means providing support as soon as a problem emerges. Approaches should be child centred and consider at all times the best interests of the child

Safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children is defined in statutory guidance Working Together (2018) as: