Safeguarding
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.
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.At Sheen Mount we take our safeguarding responsibilities very seriously:
Designated Safeguarding Lead (DSL): Maria O'Brien, Deputy Headteacher
Deputy Designated Safeguarding Leads (DDSLs): Laura Jeffery, Assistant Headteacher and Inclusion Lead, Tom Holmes, Headteacher and Jane McCabe, SEN/Safeguarding Teaching Assistant
If you have any safeguarding concerns that you wish to raise, please use the following email address:
safeguardinglead@sheenmount.richmond.sch.uk
Urgent calls
Call 999 if you think a child or young person is in immediate danger.
A further source of information and guidance can be found on the NSPCC website from the link below.
Safeguarding Governors: Jennifer Wright and Caroline Bones
Health and Safety Governor: Maria Widdowson
For more information please take some time to read our policy which can be accessed by going to our Policies page via the main menu or the link below.
If you have any concerns about the welfare or safety of a child or young person you can call the Single Point of Access (SPA)
Call 020 8547 5008 from 8am to 5.15pm, Monday to Thursday, and 8am to 5pm on Friday.
During out of hours, phone 020 8770 5000.
The Single Point of Access is a multi-agency team, managed by Achieving for Children, who work closely with a wide range of teams and partner agencies and facilitates different levels of support depending on the needs of the child, young person and their family. You can contact them to request support, or to report a concern about a child or young person.
DBS checks for Parent Helpers
We are always very grateful to parents who would like to help us and there are many opportunities to do so, particularly in EYFS and Key Stage 1. In order to help, the school requires you to hold a valid DBS certificate. We are unable to rely on certificates issued on behalf of organisations which aren't the school, unless you hold an annually renewable DBS. The school can carry out the DBS check for you; there is a charge for this.
Once you have made payment, please bring the required documents (see below), and your national insurance number if you have it, into the school office between 9.10am and 2.45pm. Please be aware that you will need to enter some further information including 5 years' address history onto the computer. This process will take around 15 minutes to complete.
Information about which documents will be accepted for the check can be found here: http://www.criminalrecordandbarringservice.co.uk/what-documents-are-required-for-a-dbs-check-and-what-are-the-different-route-options/
The acceptable financial statements listed under 2b in this link must be within the last three months (with the exception of mortgage, pension, endowment/ISA or council tax statements or a P45 which may all be within the last 12 months) and must be in hard copy, NOT AN INTERNET PRINT OUT.
If you have not lived in the UK for the previous five years, please note that you will also have to obtain a certificate of good conduct from the countries that you have lived in during that period. You will need to obtain this certificate yourself and present it to the school to satisfy the school's safeguarding policy that you are fully cleared to help with the children.
You will receive your certificate in the post. Please bring it into the office once received so that we can update our Single Central Register to be able to take your DBS into account.
Prevent Strategy
What is the Prevent strategy?
- Prevent is a government strategy designed to stop people becoming terrorists or supporting terrorist or extremist causes.
- The Prevent strategy covers all types of terrorism and extremism, including the extreme right wing, violent Islamist groups and other causes.
How does the Prevent strategy apply to schools?
- From July 2015 all schools (as well as other organisations) have a duty to safeguard children from radicalisation and extremism.
- This means we have a responsibility to protect children from extremist and violent views the same way we protect them from any other harm.
- Importantly, we can provide a safe place for pupils to discuss these issues, at an appropriate level so that they better understand how to protect themselves.
What does this mean in practice at Sheen Mount Primary School?
Many of the things we already do in school to help children become positive, happy members of society also contribute to the Prevent strategy. These include:
- Promoting our aims and values:
- to provide excellent teaching from confident, motivated and committed staff
- to value children, supporting them to become happy, confident, selfmotivated and organised
- to enable children to achieve their full potential through engaging with a broad, balanced and challenging curriculum
- to enable children to demonstrate their understanding of cultural diversity
- to provide an inclusive school which enables children to demonstrate an understanding and respect for the needs of others and of the environment
- to provide a physical environment that is conducive to achieving excellence supported by resources of the highest quality
- to have a positive and strong partnership between school, home and the wider community
- Focusing on our Living Values (cooperation, love, respect, simplicity, happiness, tolerance, unity, peace, responsibility, humility honesty and freedom).
- Exploring other cultures and religions and promoting diversity.
- Challenging prejudices and racist comments.
- Developing critical thinking skills and a strong, positive self-identity.
- Promoting the spiritual, moral, social and cultural development of pupils, as well as the British Values (democracy, rule of law, individual liberty, tolerance of different faiths and beliefs, mutual respect).
We will also protect children from the risk of radicalisation, for example by using filters on the internet to make sure they cannot access extremist and terrorist material, or by vetting visitors who come into school to work with pupils.
Different schools will carry out the Prevent duty in different ways, depending on the age of the children and the needs of the community.
Isn’t my child too young to learn about extremism?
The Prevent strategy is not just about discussing extremism itself, which may not be appropriate for younger children. It is also about teaching children ‘values’ such as tolerance and mutual respect. This is what we will focus on at Sheen Mount Primary School.
The school will make sure any discussions are suitable for the age and maturity of the children involved.
Is extremism really a risk in our area?
Extremism can take many forms, including political, religious and misogynistic extremism. Some of these may be a bigger threat in our area than others.
We will endeavour to teach children the skills to protect them from any extremist views they may encounter, now or later in their lives.
Further information
Contact the school - If you have any questions or concerns about the Prevent Strategy and what it means for your child, please do not hesitate to contact the school.
See our policies - You will find more details about radicalisation in our safeguarding policy, available on our website.
Here is our Prevent Risk Assessment: