You and the staff team have ensured that pupils are safe and secure by promoting the clear message that safeguarding is everyone’s responsibility. Detailed safeguarding records are kept rigorously and regularly reviewed to ensure that they meet statutory requirements. Staff and governors undertake appropriate, frequent and up-to-date training. This includes training related to keeping pupils safe from radicalisation and extremism. The leadership team has ensured that all safeguarding arrangements are fit for purpose. Your vigilance and that of the leadership team regarding the care, support and advocacy of vulnerable pupils is a strength.
Ofsted report 2018
“Pupils say that they feel very safe and well cared for in the school. They feel confident that adults will help them if needed. Pupils of all ages talk with knowledge about the ways that they can stay safe in a range of situations, including personally and online.”
Ofsted Report 2018
Safeguarding is a term which is broader than ‘child protection’ and relates to the action taken to promote the welfare of children and protect them from harm.
The Safeguarding Team
The Safeguarding Team can be contacted via the school office or school email address and are:
Miss D Stewart DSL – Assistant Headteacher
Mr P Stanley – Headteacher
Mrs A Deakin – Deputy Headteacher
Miss S Burness – Pastoral Lead
**Please see below for our Child Protection Procedures**
Safeguarding is everyone’s responsibility. Safeguarding is defined in Working Together to Safeguard Children-2023 as:
Safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children is defined as-
• providing help and support to meet the needs of children as soon as problems
emerge
• protecting children from maltreatment, whether that is within or outside the home,
including online
• preventing impairment of children’s mental and physical health or development
• ensuring that children grow up in circumstances consistent with the provision of
safe and effective care
• promoting the upbringing of children with their birth parents, or otherwise their
family network through a kinship care arrangement, whenever possible and where
this is in the best interests of the children
• taking action to enable all children to have the best outcomes in line with the
outcomes set out in the Children’s Social Care National Framework
In school we safeguard children in many ways, details of which can be found below. All staff receive annual safeguarding training to ensure that it remains our highest priority. Our school is also part of a project called Operation Encompass which is run between the local authority and police. The project has been designed to provide early reporting of domestic violence incidents that occur outside school which might have an impact in school. All staff are also trained in the Prevent strategy, the purpose of Prevent is to stop people from becoming terrorists or supporting terrorism. This includes countering terrorist ideology and supporting individuals who are especially vulnerable to becoming radicalised.
Early Help
We also offer Early Help support – see our Mental Health and Wellbeing page for more information and the brochure below. Early help refers to the offer of any information, advice or support to children, young people and their families as soon as possible in their lives, or when issues emerge, to help prevent problems from escalating.
Operation Encompass
Our school participates in a Police led initiative called Operation Encompass. This is a partnership between Cheshire schools and the Police, which helps schools to better support any child where a domestic incident has been reported to Police from their home.
Following a domestic incident, the Police will make contact with the child’s school via telephone and secure email (usually the next day) to communicate relevant information to a nominated member of school staff. This will ensure that as a school, we are made aware early enough, to support children and young people in a way that means they feel safe, supported and listened to. It will also provide an opportunity for school to offer support to the whole family.
The initiative was launched county-wide at the beginning of 2016. It is active in all Cheshire schools. You can find out more about Operation Encompass via the following site: http://www.operationencompass.org.
Warrington Safeguarding Partnerships
The Child and Social Work Act 2017 requires the Local Authority, the Integrated Care Board (ICB) and the police to make arrangements to work together to safeguard and promote the welfare of children.
The partnership does not commission or deliver direct frontline services. Our job is to make sure that the services that partners deliver or commission all work well together and that they are effective in keeping children and young people safe.
Our aims are that:
- Every child and young person in Warrington is safe and healthy and has the opportunity to reach their potential.
- We create a ‘challenge and check’ process for practice; and
- We embed a culture of learning that always seeks to make improvements.
Our core partners are Warrington Borough Council, NHS Cheshire & Merseyside ICB and Cheshire Constabulary (Police).
The Partnership is responsible for monitoring the performance of local agencies’ arrangements for safeguarding children as set out in section 11 of the Children Act 2004.
The partnership will consult with community groups so that the needs of community are being met. The voice of the child and families are central to the work of Warrington Safeguarding Partnership (WSP).
We will also link to working groups across Cheshire, such as the Pan Cheshire Child Death Overview Panel (CDOP) to ensure we work collaboratively to improve children’s experiences.
Further information about our safeguarding arrangements is available in the Safeguarding Arrangements document.
Click this photo for more information 
Children Missing from Education Policy
Child Protection and Safeguarding Policy
Keeping Children Safe in Education 2024.
Managing Allegations Against Staff and Volunteers
Preventing Extremism and Radicalisation
Useful Online Safety Links
Schools-Web-Filtering-Service-Summary-for-Stakeholders-Oct-2023 (1)se
WEB FILTERING SOLUTION -SCHOOL CURRICULUM NETWORK WBC ICT STATEMENT
Please note that the filtering statement only applies to Schools meeting the following criteria
- School has signed up to the full network service as offered by WBC ICT
- School has followed the guidance offered from WBC ICT and changed Primary and Secondary DNS entries to recommended settings, the use of any other DNS entries will invalidate this statement
- School understands that this statement does not apply to mobile 3G/4G networks
- The school has a robust online safety policy
What is the Web Filtering service?
The schools’ web filtering service provides a filter for staff and learners preventing them from accessing potentially harmful online content. The service, transparent to the end user, intercepts all internet traffic from the school’s curriculum network which connects via the WBC broadband circuit (WAN) provided as part of the Network SLA.
Web filtering is configured using various policies. These policies can be set globally for all schools or at an individual level depending on the specific requirements requested by the school which may include:
- Time of day
- Time of week for specific clubs or groups
- Website specific e.g. Facebook
Individual schools can request greater control for their school in line with individual school policies and the Keeping Children Safe in Education (KCSIE) guidance 2016.
Endpoints (PCs, laptops, iPads) on the curriculum network do not need any specific configuration for the web filtering to be applied, ensuring all web bound traffic from the school’s curriculum network is filtered. However your 3rd party may need to change some configuration on the curriculum network in order to ensure Google and Bing search.
The following disclaimer is published by the UK Safer Internet Centre:
“It is important to recognise that no filtering systems can be 100% effective and need to be supported with good teaching and learning practice and effective supervision”
In the event of a site being discovered that is deemed inappropriate by the school, this should be logged via 2200, so the WBC ICT team can investigate and take appropriate action. This will be done within the existing service SLA.
How does web filtering work?
Web filtering blocks access to potentially harmful online material from staff and learners by categorising online content e.g. pornography, gaming, gambling, social media, etc.
Statement from our provider – Fortinet:
“General categorisation is based on an automated categorisation engine which has been developed in-house and which has evolved over more than 13 years since its initial conception. The system uses language dictionaries to allow support in any language. Sites are scanned based on a number of methods:
- new pages on identified popular sites
- URLs which are requested by a user, but which are not rated. Such URLs will go into a queue to be rated based on hit count and the current charge on the system.
- Bulk requests from a specific customer. Such requests are treated case by case, but we generally offer this as a free service.
- Individual requests received from customers or users. These requests can be received in a number of ways (see below) and may be either requests to rate an unrated site, or requests to change the rating of a site.
In general, initial rating is done by the automated rating system. Malicious content (viruses, exploits) is not rated using this system (more details below) because such sites generally have legitimate visible content. Ratings may also be obtained from third-party feeds, including feeds from governments or other organisations, containing such content as extremism or sexual violence. Requests to change the rating of an already categorised URL will always be dealt with by a human, to ensure that the request gets the highest level of care and attention.
- A flexible hierarchical search system is used which allows ratings to be given to anything from a top-level domain or an IP address, right down to a fully-specified URL. This allows for example a blogging site such as wordpress.com to have a “Personal Websites and Blogs” rating, whilst individual blogs can have a rating based on their actual content. It also ensures that the entire wordpress domain is not blocked just because a single blogger posts inappropriate content. “
Does the service provide appropriate filtering and monitoring?
From September 2016, the DfE revised their statutory guidance “Keeping Children Safe in Education” with specific reference to web filtering. The following requirement has now been added:
“Schools are obligated to “ensure appropriate filters and appropriate monitoring systems are in place. Children should not be able to access harmful or inappropriate material from the school or colleges IT system” however, schools will need to “be careful that “over-blocking” does not lead to unreasonable restrictions as to what children can be taught with regards to online teaching and safeguarding.”
The UK Safer internet centre, has published provider checklists around appropriate filtering and appropriate monitoring:
To ensure the service we provide to schools meets these criteria, we have asked our supplier Fortinet to complete these checklists which will act as a baseline statement of assurance around the appropriate filtering and appropriate monitoring service.
Click on the links below to access useful websites.
| Useful Information Sources | |
| BBG Guidance | BBC Guidance – BBC Guidance Advice for Parents when Sharing Photos of Your Child |
| CEOP | Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP) – their main site for advice, help and to report an issue |
| Thinkuknow | Parents & Carers – The CEOP’s ThinkUKnow guidance and awareness information for parents and carers. |
| Anti-Bullying Alliance | Anti-Bullying Alliance – this is an alliance of over 60 organisations, who work together to stop bullying and create safer environments for children and young people. |
| Digizen | The Digizen website provides information for educators, parents, carers, and young people. It is used to strengthen awareness and understanding of digital citizenship. |
| Child Net | e-Safety tips, advice and resources to help children and young people stay safe on the internet. |
| UKCIS | The UK Council for Child Internet Safety (UKCIS) is a group of more than 200 organisations drawn from across government, industry, law, academia and charity sectors that work in partnership to help keep children safe online. |
| Google Safety | The web was designed to be explored, but Google has controls to help you keep it a safer place for your family to roam. Visit their facilities to learn about the online tools available. |
| Get Safe Online | Get Safe Online is one of the UK’s leading source of unbiased, factual and easy-to-understand information on online safety. |