Safeguarding
Everyone who comes into contact with children and their families has an important role to play in safeguarding children. School staff are particularly important as they are in a position to identify concerns early and provide help for children, to prevent concerns from escalating. Schools and their staff form part of a wider safeguarding system for children. At Dauntsey Academy Primary School, we are committed to the well-being and safety of all our children and we will always adopt a sensitive and caring approach to supporting them and their families.What is Safeguarding?
Safeguarding is the action that is taken to promote the welfare of children and protect them from harm.
Safeguarding means:
- protecting children from abuse and maltreatment
- preventing harm to children’s health or development ensuring children grow up with the provision of safe and effective care
- taking action to enable all children and young people to have the best outcomes
Safeguarding is everyone’s responsibility.
What is Child Protection?
Child protection is part of the safeguarding process. It focuses on protecting individual children identified as suffering or likely to suffer significant harm. This includes child protection procedures which detail how to respond to concerns about a child.
We recognise our legal and moral duty to promote the wellbeing of children and keep them safe. Safeguarding and child protection is at the core of everything we do and is of paramount importance, overriding all other considerations. Regardless of age, gender, race, culture or disability our children have the right to be safe in our schools.
We actively listen to our children and take seriously what they tell us. We ensure that our staff are aware of, and have the skills to deal with, any child protection or safeguarding concerns, including through statutory training around current initiatives in safeguarding and child protection. All new staff have induction training in safeguarding and the Single Central Record (SCR) is updated to reflect this. We have robust recruitment procedures and professional development programmes which ensure that all of our staff are inclusive, passionate and principled and uphold our strong ethos and values.
Schools are legally required to follow set procedures to protect children at risk and the Local Authority requires the Headteacher or a Designated Senior Leader to be responsible for Child Protection. They must report any obvious or suspected cases of child abuse, which includes non-accidental injury, severe physical neglect, emotional abuse and / or sexual abuse. In our school, the Headteacher has the role of Designated Safeguarding Lead (DSL). In addition, our Inclusion Lead is a Deputy Designated Safeguarding Lead (DDSL). Anyone who works with us in an unsupervised capacity with children, whether paid or voluntary, requires DBS (Disclosure Barring Services) certification.
Full details of our safeguarding commitments are available in our Safeguarding and Child Protection Policy.
DAPS Early Help Offer and our Safeguarding Curriculum
We have a strong culture of safeguarding: children know they are valued and will be listened to. We appreciate the importance of early help in our safeguarding duty, and we aim to recognise families and children who may benefit from early intervention and put this in place in a timely manner. We ensure that our children get the support that they need, at the time that they need it. This keeps them safe and, ultimately, enables them to learn, grow and love. You can read more information about our early help offer in the document below:
DAPS Early Help Offer and our Safeguarding Curriculum