What is Safeguarding?
At St Peter and St Paul CE VA Primary School the safety and wellbeing of our children is of the highest priority in all aspects of school life. Children need to feel safe, cared for and valued in order to learn and thrive. Everyone who comes into contact with children and their families has a role to play and our staff will make sure their approach is child-centred. This means they consider, at all times, what is in the best interests of the child.
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
- taking action to enable all children to have the best possible outcomes.
As part of our safeguarding duty we liaise with other agencies including Children's Services, Health Services and Sussex Police. We have signed up to 'Operation Encompass' with Sussex Police, which provides early reporting to schools of any domestic abuse incidents that occur in which a child was present.
Our Designated Safeguarding Leads (DSLs) are Mrs Hamill, Mrs Ford, Miss Truelove, Mr Eldridge and Miss Jupp. They are known as the 'Safety Officers' by the children. We teach our children to report any concerns they may have in the following ways:
- talk to their class teachers or to the school Safety Officers
- use the class 'worry monsters' or the Safety Officers' 'worry box' to post notes to trusted adults of any worries they might have
- use the whistleblowing button on the school learning platform
- use the Childline or NSPCC posters around school.
Our Designated Safeguarding Governor is Mrs Elias.
Our Child Protection and Safeguarding Policy can be found on the 'Policies' page of this website.
Safeguarding in the Curriculum
At St Peter and St Paul CE VA Primary School we endeavour to give our children the knowledge and skills they need to keep themselves safe. This includes being able to identify risk and know how to access support if needed. Please click on our 'Safeguarding Curriculum Overview' for further information on the content of the school's safeguarding curriculum.
Online Safety
Welcome to our school online safety section. This is here to help you and your child stay safe online when using desktop, tablet and mobile devices. The section will be updated regularly so please make sure you check back to see our new content.
We encourage our parents to use the Safer Schools app, which is an essential mobile app providing a simple and convenient way for parents to learn about online safety and to help protect their children. You can find out how to download the app here.
The newsfeed service from Parent Info has been discontinued, but you can find information on the websites below.
Parental Guide of the Month
Following on from their work on Safer Internet Day, which we took part in as a school, the UK Safer Internet Centre have developed some parent and carers support and advice pages.
They cover questions such as ‘Things change so fast online, it’s hard to keep up with what my child is doing ‘ and ‘My child keeps asking to play a game. or download an app that I don’t know about, what can I do?’ and have links to some very useful advice. The webpage can be found here.
Report Harmful Content
The RHC button is an asset of SWGfL, a charity working internationally to ensure all benefit from technology, free from harm.
The button has been developed to offer anyone living in the UK a simple and convenient mechanism for gaining access to reporting routes for commonly used social networking sites, gaming platforms, apps and streaming services alongside trusted online safety advice, help and support. It also provides access to an online mechanism for reporting online harm to the RHC service for those over the age of 13 where an intial report has been made to industry but no action has been taken. RHC will review content in line with a sites' community standards and act in a mediatory capacity where content goes against these.
Children under 13 years of age are encouraged to tell an adult that they trust about what has happened and to ask for their help in reporting this going through our how we can help resource together.
RHC also have advice and links to reporting routes for other online harms people may come across or face, such as impersonation, privacy violations and intimate image abuse.
The RHC button provides a gateway to the RHC reporting pages, an area of the RHC website offering:
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links to reporting routes on commonly used sites for 8 types of online harm
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help, advice and support on what to do if experiencing or witnessing harm online
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signposting to industry partners reporting forms and the ability to reportlegal but harmful content directly to RHC for further investigation
Reporting to RHC
Reports can be made 24/7 through the online reporting forms and helpline practitioners will review and respond to reports within 72 hours between 10am and 4pm Monday to Friday.
Reports can be made to RHC by anyone over the age of 13. SWGfL operates 3 helplines and to be sure you're getting the right support take a look at the Helpline flowchart to find out who can best support you.
Top Tips
Internet Matters have teamed up with Sony Interactive Entertainment to create a quiz that is useful to find out about the safety options available on a PlayStation. The quiz may be a fun activity to do with your child and help you both think about how to stay safe on a PlayStation. The quiz can be found here. We hope you find this information helpful.
Useful Websites
The following websites contain some useful information about keeping your children safe online.
Support for children
Childline for free and confidential advice.
UK Safer Internet Centre to report and remove harmful online content.
CEOP for advice on making a report about online abuse.
Report Remove helps young people under 18 in the UK to confidentially report sexual images and videos of themselves and remove them from the internet.
Take It Down is one step young people can take to help remove online nude, partially nude, or sexually explicit photos and videos taken before they were 18.
Parental support
#Ask the awkward – Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre guidance to parents to talk to their children about online relationships.
Childnet offers a toolkit to support parents and carers of children of any age to start discussions about their online life, to set boundaries around online behaviour and technology use, and to find out where to get more help and support.
Commonsensemedia provide independent reviews, age ratings, & other information about all types of media for children and their parents.
Government advice about protecting children from specific online harms such as child sexual abuse, sexting, and cyberbullying.
Internet Matters provide age-specific online safety checklists, guides on how to set parental controls on a range of devices, and a host of practical tips to help children get the most out of their digital world.
Let’s Talk About It provides advice for parents and carers to keep children safe from online radicalisation.
London Grid for Learning provides support for parents and carers to keep their children safe online, including tips to keep primary aged children safe online.
Stopitnow resource from The Lucy Faithfull Foundation can be used by parents and carers who are concerned about someone’s behaviour, including children who may be displaying concerning sexual behaviour (not just about online).
National Crime Agency/CEOP Thinkuknow provides support for parents and carers to keep their children safe online.
Net-aware provides support for parents and carers from the NSPCC and O2, including a guide to social networks, apps and games.
Parentzone provides help for parents and carers on how to keep their children safe online.
Talking to your child about online sexual harrassment: a guide for parents - this is the Children’s Commissioner’s parent guide on talking to your children about online sexual harassment
UK Safer Internet Centre provide tips, advice, guides and other resources to help keep children safe online.