Safeguarding

Safeguarding at The Meadow

We at The Meadow Primary School take our Safeguarding responsibilities very seriously. This means that we ensure that everyone working in our school has successfully completed the necessary clearances to enable them to work with children.

It also means that we have a staff member who is specifically trained and nominated as the Designated Child Protection Officer/Safeguarding Lead within school. Our named person is Mrs Nichola Pickford, Headteacher. The Deputy Safeguarding Lead is Mrs Nicky Butcher, Deputy Headteacher. We also have 4 other trained DSL’s – Mrs Faye Facer, Mrs Beecroft-Sullivan, Mrs Emma Rogers and Mrs Lucy Bitten.

The Headteacher, Deputy Headteacher and Assistant Headteacher have also completed the safer recruitment training.

We are all expected to share any concerns we have about staff conduct around children with the Head Teacher. As in all schools, if there are concerns about the conduct of the Head, then these should be shared with the Chair of Governors. The staff ‘Whistleblowing Policy’ has been discussed and adopted and all staff have access to this document.

We also follow the Cambridgeshire Local Authority’s Protection Procedures and the Local Safeguarding Children’s Board local guidance and we have systems in place to share concerns regarding children’s welfare with the designated person, with parents and with relevant external agencies. Part of our legal duty to safeguard our children, may also include us needing to consult specifically with and take advice from, the Police or Children’s Social Care, should the need arise. We will ensure that our concerns about our pupils are discussed with his/her parents/carers first unless we have reason to believe that such a move would be contrary to the child’s welfare.

By working closely together as a staff and with our partner agencies, we firmly believe that we will continue to offer a safe learning environment for all our children.

Please take the time to read our policies and do not hesitate to contact the school should you have any questions about the very serious issue.

PREVENT STRATEGY

As part of The Meadow’s commitment to safeguarding and child protection we fully support the government’s Prevent Strategy, and take guidance from Teaching Approaches to help build resilience to extremism.

WHAT IS THE PREVENT STRATEGY?

The Prevent strategy is a government strategy designed to stop people becoming terrorists, supporting terrorism, fundamentalism or extremist behaviours. The strategy:

• Responds to the ideological challenge we face from terrorism and aspects of extremism, and the threat we face from those who promote these views
• Provides practical help to prevent people from being drawn into terrorism and ensure they are given appropriate advice and support
• Works with a wide range of sectors (including education, criminal justice, faith, charities, online and health)

The Linton Primary Cluster Schools have written a joint statement on preventing radicalisation. This can be found below.