Safeguarding

We are completely committed to safeguarding the children in all aspects of school life and take this duty seriously.

The staff and governors work tirelessly to ensure that the children are: safe from harm, know that staff have their welfare at heart and that they will be listened to if they want to discuss a problem.

We believe that every person within the school has this responsibility, and our expectation is that they will report any concerns that they might have.

The school has a Safeguarding Team who oversee all areas of school life. You can talk to any of them if you have a concern about your child or another child.

The Team are:

Sue Blyth

Headteacher & Designated Safeguarding Lead & Online Safety Lead

Sue Blyth
Lucy Hewerdine

Assistant Head & Deputy DSL and Prevent

Lucy Hewerdine
Kellie Park

Strategic Leader EYFS , Mental Health Lead, Deputy DSL

Kellie Park
Ruth Jones

HLTA Inclusion Team & Deputy DSL

Ruth Jones
Harriet Bowen

Local Authority Governor, Standards Committee, Safeguarding

Harriet Bowen

My Voice

At Fourfields, we now have an anonymous reporting tool to allow parents or any members of the community to let us know if they are worried about a child. If you have concerns that a child you know, in our Fourfields Family, is at risk you can bring this to our attention by scanning the QR code here and completing the form. You can also use this form if you are concerned about an adult who may be a safeguarding risk to our school community.

We work with a wide range of agencies in our safeguarding work:

Safeguarding Statement

Under section 175 of the Education Act 2002 (as amended), *the Education (Independent School Standards) Regulations 2014, the Non-Maintained Special Schools (England) Regulations 2015, and the Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Act 2009 (as amended) to have arrangements in place to safeguard and promote the welfare of children.

We will endeavour to provide a safe and welcoming environment where children are respected and valued.

The school will therefore be alert to signs of abuse and neglect and will follow the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Safeguarding Children Partnership Board’s procedures to ensure that children receive appropriate and effective support and protection.

Parents/carers should know that the law requires all school staff to pass on information which gives rise to a concern about a child’s welfare, including risk from neglect, physical, emotional or sexual abuse. Parents/carers should know that records of safeguarding concerns may be kept about their child. They should be informed that school staff will seek, in general, to discuss any concerns with them including referrals to other agencies.

Local procedures state that “Consent should always be sought from an adult with parental responsibility for the child/young person before passing information about them to Children’s Social Care, unless seeking consent would place the child at risk of significant harm or may lead to the loss of evidence for example destroying evidence of a crime or influencing a child about a disclosure made.” This includes allowing them to share information without consent, if it is not possible to gain consent, if it cannot be reasonably expected that a professional gains consent, or if to gain consent would place a child at risk.

Where there is a need to share special category personal data, the Data Protection Act 2018 contains ‘safeguarding of children and individuals at risk’ as a processing condition that allows professionals to share information.

In accordance with legislation and local Information Sharing protocols, we will ensure that information is shared securely and sensitively. Information will only be shared with other services where it is deemed necessary and proportionate to ensure that children and young people are safe and receive the right service. In all circumstances, the safety of the child will be the paramount concern.

Schools will contact Children’s Social Care when they have reasonable cause to suspect a child may be suffering or likely to suffer significant harm. Occasionally, concerns are passed on which are later shown to be unfounded. Parents/carers will appreciate that the member of staff in the school with responsibility for child protection (known as the Designated Safeguarding Lead or Deputy Designated Safeguarding Lead) was carrying out their responsibilities in accordance with the law and acting in the best interests of all children.

Under Section 3 (5) of the Children Act 1989, any person who has care of a child “may….do what is reasonable in all the circumstances of the case for the purpose of safeguarding promoting the child’s welfare”. This means that on rare occasions, a school may need to “hold” a child in school whilst Social Care and the Police investigate any concerns further.

* The word ‘school’ is used throughout but this would include all educational settings e.g. Academies, Pupil Referral Units, Further Education establishments and Independent schools.

Safeguarding Newsletters - 2023-24

Safeguarding Newsletter 3 2023-24

Safeguarding Newsletter 2 2023-24

Safeguarding Newsletter 1 2023-24

Safeguarding Newsletters - 2022-23

Safeguarding Newsletter 5 2022-23

Safeguarding Newsletter 4 2022-23

Safeguarding Newsletter 3 2022-23

Safeguarding Newsletter 2 2022

Safeguarding Newsletter 1 2022

Safeguarding Policies - Click + for more information

Please see below for the list of policies relating to safeguarding. These can be found HERE on our policies page, or are available on request.

Safeguarding and Child Protection Policy

Safeguarding Policy COVID Appendix

Supporting Pupils with Medical Conditions Policy

Safer Recruitment Policy

ICT Acceptable Use Policy

Online Safety Policy

Mobile Phone Use Policy

Looked After Children Policy

First Aid Policy

Social Emotional and Mental Health Policy

Prevent Duty Policy

Health and Safety Policy

Whistle Blowing Policy

Staff Code of Conduct

Intimate Care Policy

Safeguarding Procedures - Click + for more information

Please see below for the list of procedures relating to safeguarding.

Late Collection Leaflet

Protocol for Late Collection

Visitors Safeguarding Leaflet

Prevent

Prevent Duty Policy

Prevent Action Plan

How to report a Concern? - Click + for more information

What is Safeguarding?

Protecting children from maltreatment;
Preventing impairment of children’s health or development;
Ensuring that children are growing up in circumstances consistent with the provision of safe and effective care; and
Taking action to enable all children to have the best life chances.

Some common themes in Safeguarding include the following: Neglect, Emotional Abuse, Physical Abuse, Children missing from Education, Child Sexual Exploitation (CSE), Bullying including Cyberbullying, Domestic Violence, Drugs, Fabricated or induced illness, Faith abuse, Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), Forced Marriage, Gangs and Youth Violence, Mental Health, Private Fostering, Preventing Radicalisation, Sexting, Trafficking.

MY VOICE

If you have a concern regarding the safeguarding of a child, you can use the QR code below, or please report to a member of the Safeguarding team by contacting the school.

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 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.

Online Safety - Click + for more information

At Fourfields, we take online safety very seriously. The DSL ensures the school’s ICT network has appropriate filters and monitoring systems in place and that it is meeting the DfE’s ‘Filtering and monitoring standards for schools and colleges’ and KCSIE. Concerns identified through monitoring are reported to the DSL who will manage the situation in line with the Child Protection and Safeguarding Policy.

Online safety is embedded into the school’s Computing curriculum as well as the wider PSHE curriculum. Every year, the school takes part in the National Internet Safety Day as well as themed assemblies taking place throughout the year. This page is intended to promote online safety and well-being for pupils, parents and carers.

If you ever have an online safety concern, please do not hesitate to contact the school. Fourfields Online Safety lead is Sue Blyth –Headteacher –Designated Safeguarding Lead

We use a variety of resources to be best equipped to teach and stay up to date with online safety and digital safeguarding. This page is just one way we communicate important online safety news and guidance.

Click HERE to watch our online safety document.

We are delighted to announce we have partnered with the National Online Safety programme, where there is a specific portal dedicated to supporting parents.

A letter with more information on this can be found HERE

nos app letter.pdf

Operation Encompass - Click + for more information

At Fourfields Community Primary School, we will be participating in a jointly run operation between Cambridge County Council, Peterborough City Council, Cambridgeshire Constabulary and our school, which is called ‘Operation Encompass’. ‘Encompass’ has been set up to help schools and colleges provide support to children who have been present at incidents of domestic abuse and violence. We know that children can be significantly physically or emotionally harmed when they are involved in, present at or are a witness to domestic abuse.

The school will receive a confidential, secure email from Cambridgeshire’s Education Safeguarding Team, now working across both Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, before 9am or as soon as possible on the morning of any domestic incident which Cambridgeshire Police have attended where a child at their school has been involved in, present at or witness to domestic abuse.

Fourfields Community Primary School, has Designated Safeguarding Leads who have received training from the Education Safeguarding Team to allow them to use the information that has been shared to ensure that the right support is available for children and their families who have been involved in or have witnessed such incidents.

We are keen to offer the best support possible to our pupils and we believe this is going to be extremely beneficial for all those involved.

If you have any concerns or questions, then please contact the school office to request a conversation with a Designated Safeguarding Lead and we will be happy to discuss this further. Further information can be found on our school website (Operation Encompass Protocol) and is available from the school office on request.

Please click HERE to view our Operation Encompass Protocol

Safeguarding in the curriculum - Click + for more information

At Fourfields, we are committed to ensuring that children are safe at all levels and whatever they are doing. To that end we have set out how our curriculum is designed to support safeguarding in every subject which you can read about HERE.