Safeguarding

The Safety and Well-being of all our Children

The safety and well-being of all children and young

people is of paramount importance. Parents and

carers send their children to school each day

with the expectation that the school provides a

safe and secure environment in which their

children can flourish. We, therefore, have to

ensure that this expectation becomes reality.

In order to achieve this, a wide range of measures

are put into place.

Safeguarding children and young people is everyone’s responsibility.

We are committed to safeguarding and promoting their welfare and expect all our staff and volunteers to share this commitment. All staff understand their responsibility to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people. Annual safeguarding training is undertaken by all members of staff and governors at the start of each academic year. All staff and governors are required to read - and sign that they have read - the current guidance in 'Keeping Children Safe in Education'.

We will work, and be seen to work, in an open and transparent way. We use safeguarding checks in all our recruitment processes. All our staff are given appropriate induction and practical guidance for safe working practice - about which behaviours constitute safe practice, which behaviours should be avoided and what to do if they are concerned about any child in school.

We have a number of policies and procedures in place that contribute to our safeguarding commitment, including our Child Protection and Safeguarding Policy which can be viewed in the policy section of our website.

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 discuss any child protection concerns about a pupil with their 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 Child Protection/ Safeguarding Lead is Miss C Smith (Headteacher).

Our Deputy Safeguarding Lead is Mrs. D. Williams

Mr A Rimmer is our Chair of Governors with responsibility for child protection and safeguarding.

Operation Encompass

Our school is part of Operation Encompass. This is a police and education early intervention safeguarding partnership which supports children and young people who experience Domestic Abuse.

Operation Encompass is a unique Police and Education early intervention safeguarding partnership which ensures that a child’s school is informed, prior to the start of the next school day, that there has been a domestic abuse, vulnerable child or missing incident to which the child or young person has been exposed, and which might then have an impact on them in school the following day.

Each school is informed of all such incidents, not just those where an offence can be identified or those which are graded as high risk. The partnership recognises that all domestic abuse, vulnerable child and missing incidents can be harmful to children and young people.

This information will be shared throughout the year, including holidays and weekends. Information will only be shared with the school by the police where it is identified that a young person was present, witnessed or was involved.

Nominated members of staff, known as a Key Adults, have been trained to liaise with the police. At St John's, our Key Adults are our Designated Safeguarding Leads: Claire Smith and Debbie Williams. They will be able to use information that has been shared with them, in confidence, to ensure that the school makes provision for possible difficulties experienced by children or their families. The Key Adults will keep this information confidential and will only share it on a need-to-know basis, for instance, to teaching staff of the child. It will not be shared with other staff or school pupils.

This national initiative has been implemented across the whole of the Lancashire Police area. If you would like some more information about it, you can view it online at www.operationencompass.org. We are keen to offer the best support possible for our pupils and a recent review of Operation Encompass showed that it is beneficial and supportive for all those involved.

We have also posted information about local Domestic Abuse services and helplines.