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Safeguarding

We are committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of all students by protecting children from maltreatment, preventing the impairment of health or development and by ensuring that children grow up in circumstances consistent with the provision of safe and effective care.

Our school is committed to meeting its moral and statutory responsibility, ensuring that robust procedures are in place, outlining the actions that it will take to prevent harm, to promote well-being, to create safe environments and to respond to specific issues and vulnerabilities.

Safeguarding determines the actions taken to keep children safe and protect them from harm in all aspects of their school life to ensure that they have the best outcomes. This is underpinned by a culture of openness where both children and adults feel secure, able to talk, and believe that they are being listened to.

We maintain an attitude of ‘it could happen here’ and expects that all staff and volunteers share and demonstrate their commitment to protecting children.

We have a team of Designated Safeguarding Leads (DSLs). The team ensure that we are fully compliant and at all times we are protecting, to the best of our ability the children in our school.

Designated Safeguarding Leads

  • Miss H Hale - Designated Safeguarding Lead
  • Mrs L Evans - Designated Safeguard Deputy
  • Mrs J Waterman - Designated Safeguard Deputy
  • Miss L Cadman - Designated Safeguard Deputy

Keeping Children Safe in Education - Part 1 translated into community languages (LGfL)

The London Grid for Learning (LGfL) have translated KCSIE 2024 Part 1 into a number of community languages as part of their commitment to helping schools keep children safe.

The translations were carried out by professional linguists with secondary proofing. However, the original English version should be treated as the official source of statutory school staff duties. Translations available are:

  • English (original)
  • Arabic
  • Bengali
  • Chinese
  • Gujarati
  • Polish
  • Romanian
  • Portuguese
  • Punjabi
  • Spanish
  • Urdu
  • Somali

The translated documents can be found here

What to do if you have a safeguarding concern

If you are worried or concerned about the way a child is being treated and think they may be at risk of harm, abuse or neglect please report it.

The School's Safeguarding Team are always available during term time. If your concern is during holiday time or is related to a child that does not attend Great Bridge please contact:

Sandwell MASH – 0121 569 3100

West Midlands Police – 101

Emergency – 999

Childline – 0800 1111

NSPCC Helpline 0808 5000    

NSPCC Whistleblowing Helpline 0800 028 0285

Operation Encompass

Our school part of the Operation Encompass project which runs alongside The West Midlands Police.

Operation Encompass is a police and education early information safeguarding partnership enabling schools to offer immediate support to children experiencing domestic abuse.

Operation Encompass ensures that there is a simple telephone call or notification to a school’s trained Designated Safeguarding Lead /Officer (known as key Adult) prior to the start of the next school day after an incident of police attended domestic abuse where there are children related to either of the adult parties involved. 

This sharing of information enables appropriate support to be given, dependent upon the needs and wishes of the child.

Sandwell’s Early Help Strategy

Providing early help is more effective in promoting the welfare of children than reacting later.

Early help means providing support as soon as a problem emerges, at any point in a child’s life. Early help can also prevent further problems from arising.

The Early Help Assessment (previously known as CAF) is an assessment of the child / young person within the context of the family and community. It is not a comprehensive, core or specialist assessment and provides the opportunity for practitioners and the family to gain a better initial understanding of the child / young person's needs.

The Early Help Assessment:

  • helps identify the child or young person's needs
  • provides structure for recording information
  • can support referrals to other services
  • provides a common form of assessment which will be familiar across children and young people's services
  • reduces duplication for practitioners
  • reduces multiple assessments for young people and their families
  • can be shared with consent.

Children Walking to and from School

There is no set legal age that children can walk to and from school independently or be left on their own. It is an offence, however, to leave a child alone if it places them at risk and therefore schools have a continual obligation to alert relevant authorities if they believe this is the case.

Should you, as Parent/Carers, feel your child is mature enough to cope with the responsibility of walking to and from school, please collect a consent form from the office. It is recommended that only year 6 children are allowed to walk to and from school alone. However, individual cases will be discussed if requested. No child will be able to walk home alone without prior consent from a Parent/Carer.

A register of children with permission will be held with the school office team.

Collection and Dropping off Children Before and After School

It is the Parent/Carer’s responsibility to ensure that the child is dropped off and collected by a responsible person if it is not safe for the child to walk home unsupervised. There is no minimum age set in law when a young person is allowed to remain in charge of another child. However, it is an offence to leave a child alone if it places them at risk and this can include the care of a sibling.

We recommend, as advised by the NSPCC, that only a young person aged 16 years or above should be permitted to drop off or collect children from school.

Safeguarding Information, Help and Advice

We work tirelessly to ensure our pupils are safe, happy and supported in fulfilling their potential, both academically and personally. Below are some helpful policies should you require more information:

Educate Against Hate

An educate against hate website was launched by Nicky Morgan, whilst she was England’s Education Secretary, as part of a renewed drive against extremism. At Great Bridge, we are committed to safeguarding and protecting pupils from potential risk and have added the link to our website which parents may find useful or interesting.

Hate Crime App for parent/carers:

Go to the Apple App Store or Google Play, type in Hate Crime and search for West Midlands Police Hate, then download the app. The contents of the app has a number of other languages available. The app provides the most accurate advice and tells you how to report hate crime.

Anti-Bullying 

Child Safety

Child Sexual Exploitation

Domestic Violence

Drugs

E-Safety

Female Genital Mutilation (FGM)

Forced Marriage

International Child Abduction

Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Trans

  • Stonewall, the leading charity and organisation for the LGBT+ community, have produced advice for parents/carers who think their child may be gay

Mental Health

Self-harm

Advice for Parents

 

  1. Updated Safeguarding Policy Sept 2023
    pdf

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