Keeping Safe at St Peter's

OUR SAFEGUARDING STATEMENT

At St Peter’s Church of England Primary School we listen to our pupils and take seriously what they tell us. All staff, governors and volunteers are committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children.

We have a number of policies and procedures in place that contribute to our safeguarding commitment, including our Safeguarding and Child Protection Policy which can be viewed in the policies section on our website.

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 parents/carers first, unless we have reason to believe that such a move would be contrary to the child's welfare.

All school staff are trained to look out for signs of harm and are required to record and report concerns to the Designated Safeguarding Lead (DSL). In school we use a secure recording system called Child Protection Online Monitoring System (CPoms) to log and monitor concerns.

Please let us know if you have any concerns or would like additional information.

Our Designated Safeguarding Lead is Ms Deborah Skuse (Pastoral and Safeguarding Lead)

Our Deputy Designated Safeguarding Leads are:

Ms Genny Oliver (Deputy Head Teacher)

Miss Gemma Metcalf (Attendance & Admission Officer)

What is Prevent Duty

The Prevent duty requires all schools to "have due regard to the need to prevent people being drawn into terrorism", under the Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015. The duty covers all types of extremism, whether political, religious or ideological.

We need to protect children from the risk of radicalisation, as part of our wider safeguarding duties and duty to promote the spiritual, moral, social and cultural development of children.

We will:

· Promote the fundamental British values in your curriculum

· Enable children to discuss sensitive topics, including terrorism and extremism

· Follow our robust safeguarding procedures to identify children at risk

· Engage with Bristol Local Authority to determine the potential risk of individuals being drawn into terrorism in our local area

· Ensure we have measures in place to protect children from harmful online content

· Make sure staff all receive training to help them identify pupils at risk, challenge extremist ideas, and know how to act if they have a concern

· Follow our usual safeguarding procedures and liaise with other agencies such as the Local Authority, police, social care or Channel, the government’s programme for identifying and supporting those at risk of being drawn into terrorism.

Find out what this means for schools and how we support children to keep them safe from extremism and radicalisation.

Click here for top tips to help parents discuss radicalisation and extremism with young people.

Mental Health and Well-being

Our current School Improvement Plan includes our commitment to personal development and well-being. To view are aims click here.

We have a Senior Mental Health Lead in school, Debra Skuse, who works closely with Lucie Temple, our Education Mental Health Practitioner. Look out for parent/carer anxiety workshops in school, often on a Friday morning in the POD. In term 2 we are running anxiety groups for some children.

Who can help?

You can click on the images above and will be directed to the websites.

Click here for information regarding "tackling online hate and trolling".

Do you have concerns about a child? Report it.

IF YOU ARE CONCERNED ABOUT THE WELL-BEING OF A CHILD

If you’re concerned about the well-being of a child contact the First Response Team on 0117 903 6444. OR call the Emergency Duty Team on 01454 615 165 outside of office hours. If the child is at immediate risk call the Police on 999.

Other numbers you can call:

NSPCC 24 hour Helpline: 0808 800 5000 (free from a landline)
NSPCC Text helpline: 88858 (service is free and anonymous)
Police: 101 (non-emergency calls)

Click here to access the Keeping Safe Partnership website to refer a child at risk of significant harm.

Contextual safeguarding

What is Contextual Safeguarding?

"We recognises that as young people grow and develop they are influenced by a whole range of environments and people outside of their family. For example in school or college, in the local community, in their peer groups or online. Children and young people may encounter risk in any of these environments. Sometimes the different contexts are inter-related and can mean that children and young people may encounter multiple risks. Contextual safeguarding looks at how we can best understand these risks, engage with children and young people and help to keep them safe. It's an approach that's often been used to apply to adolescents, though the lessons can equally be applied to younger children, especially in today's changing world."

Cate Meredith, Senior Consultant for the NSPCC

Child Exploitation

Definition from Save the Children, 2020

"Child exploitation refers to the use of children for someone else’s advantage, gratification or profit often resulting in unjust, cruel and harmful treatment of the child."

These activities are to the detriment of the child’s physical or mental health, education, moral or social-emotional development. It covers situations of manipulation, misuse, abuse, victimisation, oppression or ill-treatment.

For further information please watch the short video clip below.

Keeping safe from Criminal Exploitation

The Children's Society have published some guidance for parents/carers to help everyone understand how to keep children safe. Find out more here.

Sometimes parents and carers worry that their child is showing signs of anxiety

Please talk to us and/or your GP if you are worried that your child is struggling with low mood and/or showing signs of anxiety.

Child Adolescent and Mental Health Services (CAMHS) occasionally deliver workshops for parents and carers in our area.

Click here to find out more from a powerpoint that was shown at a recent workshop.

Here are some CAMHS recommended books and websites about anxiety that might be helpful

Please talk to school and/or your GP if you are worried that your child is struggling with low mood and/or anxiety.

Safeguarding Newsletters

Term 2 Safeguarding Newsletter - 2022/2023

Previous Safeguarding Newsletters

Safeguarding Champions

Do you know who are our school champions?

Previous safeguarding champions have designed a child-friendly anti-bullying leaflet, carried out a children's playground audit and delivered a KS2 anti-bullying assembly. Each term they hand out the bilbo rewards to all children with 100% attendance. Great job! They are now in the process of designing a leaflet for children about mental health.

Anti-Bullying information

The NSPCC have lots of information to share about bullying. Please see our e-safety page for further details about online bullying.

In term 3 our KS2 (year 3 to year 6) Safeguarding Champions created and delivered an assembly on anti-bullying to KS2, Click here to have a look. We are now creating a similar assembly to deliver to the younger children in school.

Assembly 22nd January 2020

We now have a child friendly anti-bullying leaflet, designed by our Safeguarding Champions. You can see it here.

Anti-bullying Alliance (ABA) - All Together Programme

In 2019/2020 we worked with the Anti-bullying Alliance to follow a national whole school programme called All Together. The focus of this programme is to help schools tackle bullying, by improving what we do and providing training for staff.

Our safeguarding champions delivered whole school anti-bullying assemblies, designed a child friendly leaflet (see above) and helped us to develop and improve school policy. Most children in years 3-6 completed well-being questionnaires at the start of our journey and at the end. This gave us a clear indication of their experiences and feelings of keeping safe.

As a result of everyone's hard work and our commitment to reducing bullying and improving the well-being of our children; we are delighted to report that we have been awarded the ABA Silver Award. Look out for the new logo.

Reducing bullying at St Peters continues to be a priority for our school. Please let us know if you believe your child is feeling bullied and is in need of support.

Unique Voice and Crimestoppers 2018

Our school was part of the hundreds of Bristol’s amazing and talented 9 and 10 year old children put on a showcase to remember at the Colston Hall , Bristol on 14^th May 2018 in front of a huge audience . This was a celebration of their learning over the last few months through a creative programme commissioned by ‘Crimestoppers in the West Country’ and delivered by arts provider ‘Unique Voice’ and has given them a powerful voice about how they feel about crime in their communities. Through drama they have explored healthy relationships , hate crime and diversity and how to speak up about crime .

The programme is in its 4^th year and only happens because of generous funding from partners and trusts . This year’s programme has been part funded by the ‘Percy Hoskins Trust’ and several other generous funders and aims to raise awareness of Crimestoppers which is the only independent charity in the UK helping to fight crime and guarantees anonymity, always .

Reports can be made via 0800 555111 or online via crimestoppers-uk.org. Both allow people to give information about crime and criminal activities 100% anonymously 24hrs a day, 7 days a week and 365 days of the year.

Last year over 3000 pieces of anonymous information were passed to law enforcement in the Avon and Somerset area alone and nationally 140,000 people have been charged since Crimestoppers was founded 30 years ago.

This picture shows a few of the children proudly displaying their ‘What Would You Do ?’ medals following a chat with the VIP guests including Chief Constable Andy Marsh , Police and Crime Commissioner Sue Mounstevens , Crimestoppers Chief Executive Mark Hallas and the The Right Honourable Lord Mayor of Bristol , Councillor Lesley Alexander and other supporters of the charity .

Please see here a very short video clip of children telling us their views on hate crime.

Stand up to bullying