Safeguarding

‘Safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children is everyone’s responsibility. Everyone who comes into contact with children and their families has a role to play in safeguarding children.’

Keeping Children Safe in Education

Archbishop Holgate’s School is committed to providing a safe environment in which children can learn. We promote a climate where students and adults feel confident about sharing any concerns which they may have about their own safety or the well-being of others.

We follow the DfE guidance from:

• Keeping Children Safe in Education
• Working Together to Safeguard Children

Gaynor Stainsby MAT Designated Safeguarding Lead	Sam Stead Deputy Designated Safeguarding Lead	Emma Short Deputy Designated Safeguarding Lead	Marie Townsley Deputy Designated Safeguarding Lead	Samantha Pugh Safeguarding Governor

Specific support can also be provided in school by:

• Lucy Ashcroft | Attendance Officer
• Year 7 – Miss Powell | Head of Year, Mrs Halifax | Assistant Head of Year and Mrs Calvert | Assistant Head of Year
• Year 8 – Miss Cooper | Head of Year, Mrs Stevens | Assistant Head of Year and Mrs Johnstone| Assistant Head of Year
• Year 9 – Miss Chambers | Head of Year, Mrs Reeder | Assistant Head of Year and Mr Deamer | Assistant Head of Year
• Year 10 – Miss Waines | Head of Year, Mr O’Brien | Assistant Head of Year and Mrs Mennell| Assistant Head of Year
• Year 11 – Miss Deacon | Head of Year, Mr McPaul| Assistant Head of Year, Mrs Robinson | Assistant Head of Year
• Year 12 – Mr MacFarlane | Head of Year and Mrs Walton | Sixth Form Support
• Year 13 – Mr Charlton | Head of Year and Mrs Walton | Sixth Form Support

If however, you are not happy with the actions of those in school responsible for Safeguarding or you cannot contact anyone please contact York’s Multi Agency Safeguarding Hub (MASH is a multi-agency single point of contact for all concerns about children and to make sure that children receive the right level of support) directly yourself for guidance on 01904 551900:

• if you know of a child who may become vulnerable without additional help and support
• if you are worried a child or young person is at risk of, or is being, hurt or abused
• if you want to know about services available to support children and families

For more information on MASH visit: www.york.gov.uk/ChildProtection

How we protect our students

Safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children is everyone’s responsibility. Everyone who comes into contact with children and their families has a role to play in safeguarding children. At Archbishop Holgate’s School this is achieved through the high profile of safeguarding throughout the school, constant self review and the following areas:

Our Governing Body

Our governing body ensure we have a Designated Safeguarding Lead (Gaynor Stainsby) and a Deputies (Daniel Furniss and Sam Stead) who are trained and capable of fulfilling the role.

They are also responsible for:

• Ensuring the schools policies and procedures are fit for purpose
• Attendance
• School Security
• Safer recruitment
• Allegations against staff and volunteers

A Safeguarding Report is produced on an annual basis. The link Governor for Safeguarding is Samantha Pugh.

Policies

At Archbishop Holgate’s School we work very hard to ensure that our policies are true and effective. You can find our Policies on the Policies Page. All staff have access to our online Staff Handbook, which includes information on all aspects of the school including, staff code of conduct and safeguarding.

School Site Security

We keep the school safe and secure by:

• Site access – the school has one main entrance, which is busy at all times. We have signs to inform visitors that they are not allowed on site unless they have a specific and legitimate reason and they must sign into main school reception.
• CCTV – we do have CCTV in school and all parents and students have been informed.
• Entrance to the building – all entrances at the front of school have either locks on doors or members of staff to supervise them. We ask that ALL visitors report to main school reception.
• All visitors to the school must sign in at main school reception. At this stage they will be issued with a lanyard. If you have provided a valid DBS and it is suitable you will allowed to move around the school unsupervised, otherwise you will escorted everywhere.
• We regularly remind all staff and students that they have a responsibility to either challenge or inform the nearest member of staff of anyone in the school without a lanyard or following our rules regarding lanyards
• Completion of Health and Safety Audits and following our policy.
• Like all schools we hire out our facilities and will have contractual staff on site at various times. We have suitable policies and procedures that includes following guidance from Keeping Children Safe Page 37, point 134. In short we ensure they have suitable DBS checks and where they hire our facilities there safeguarding procedures are in place and we believe are suitable to keep our students safe.

Further details on the above can be provided when visiting our school.

Safe Recruitment Procedures

This includes all aspects of the schools:

• Procedures
• Single Central Register
• Training

Please click here to view our Safe Recruitment Policy.

Training

This includes training for:

• All staff, including induction, ongoing and annual training
• Designated Safeguarding Lead
• Governors
• Agency staff and volunteers
• Students

Every member of staff completes the following training:

• Child protection Fundamentals
  Prevent
  FGM Forced Marriage Awareness Training

Allegations against a member of staff and whistleblowing

It is essential that any allegation of abuse made against a teacher or other member of staff or volunteer in a school is dealt with very quickly, in a fair and consistent way that provides effective protection for the child and at the same time supports the person who is the subject of the allegation. All students know that they can speak to their Form Tutor, Head of Year, Pastoral Support Worker about anything. Staff must then refer to the relevant person as explained in Section C of the staff hand book. Students and staff are encouraged to raise concerns within the school rather than overlooking a problem or ‘blowing the whislte’ outside. The School is committed to the highest possible standards of openness, probity and accountability. In line with that commitment it encourages employees and others with serious concerns about any aspect of the School’s work to come forward and voice those concerns. It recognises that certain cases will have to proceed on a confidential basis. This policy makes it clear that staff can do so without fear of reprisals and is intended to encourage and enable staff to raise serious concerns within the School; rather than overlooking a problem or publicly disclosing the matter.

Visitors and volunteers

All our visitors and volunteers must follow our procedures in order to help safeguard our students. These are explained in our policy and our staff and students are fully trained. The key elements are:

• No visitor in the school who has not got an updated DBS is left alone at any point.
• All content delivered by external speakers is checked before delivery.
• Click here to view the visitors policy.
• The Pathfinder Teaching School Alliance is accessed via its own entrance, all visitors are signed in and a lanyard is issued. Exit from Pathfinder to the rest of main school is not possible due to locks and lanyards.
• Contractors all follow our DBS checks to ensure they are safe to work in a school.
• External hiring of the school facilities, within school hours. This is only for primary schools, who must evidence suitable safeguarding procedures themselves first and then all adults sign in and provide evidence of a suitable DBS.
• External hiring of the school facilities outside of school hours. This is limited to after 6pm and they must evidence suitable safeguarding procedures themselves. We do hire our swimming pool out after 4pm but this is limited in access and interaction with our students.

Specific Safeguarding issues

Please visit our page entitled Protecting Your Child, which provides links and useful information on the following areas of safeguarding. We address these throughout the curriculum, during our Acts of Collective Worship and during our Form Tutor programme, including a topic each week in the ‘News’.

Attendance

Attendance is an essential part of safeguarding our students. The links below will help you to understand how we address this area:

• Attendance Policy
• Attendance page on our website

Protecting vulnerable children

For all cases where we believe a student is at risk we will refer to Children’s Front Door on 01904 551900. This is based on

• if we know of a child who may become vulnerable without additional help and support
• if we are worried a child or young person is at risk of, or is being, hurt or abused
• if we want to know about services available to support children and families

For more information on MASH visit: www.york.gov.uk/ChildProtection

We work with social services to ensure that:

• where a child has been identified as being at risk, there is a written plan in place with clear and agreed procedures to protect them.
• Where a child is the subject of a child in need plan or child protection plan, or is looked after, a suitable plan is effectively established and implemented

We work with the relevant agency where:

• there are risks associated with children offending
• misusing drugs or alcohol
• self-harming
• going missing
• being vulnerable to radicalisation
• being sexually exploited:

Our Looked After Children are kept safe by:

• Working with all relevant agencies
• Following agreed plans

Our SEND students are kept safe by:

• Education
• Care and support

We share information on a need to know basis and constantly review our own procedures.

Inter-agency working/Early Help

The school is committed to working with other agencies to ensure the safety and welfare of our students.

• We contribute to inter-agency working in line with statutory guidance, Working Together to Safeguarding Children.
• We will share information with agencies to protect our students following the guidance provided by the Data Protection Act

Operation Encompass

Our school has been given the opportunity to take part in a new project that will run jointly between all schools, academies and colleges in York and North Yorkshire. This new project, Operation Encompass, has been designed to provide early reporting to schools of any domestic abuse incidents that occur outside of normal school hours and that might have had an impact on a child attending our premises the following day. This information will be shared at the earliest opportunity between Monday to Friday and, when an incident occurs on a Friday, Saturday or a Sunday, the police will contact us the following Monday.

For more information please visit:

www.operationencompass.org
northyorkshire.police.uk
www.idas.org.uk