Safeguarding

As you may be aware, all schools are required to have a Child Protection and Safeguarding Policy and clear procedures that guide the practices of staff when safeguarding children and promoting their welfare.

Dunston Hill Community Primary School (DHCPS) takes its duty towards all of its pupils who have been entrusted to its care very seriously and seeks to provide a school environment where all children are safe, secure, valued, respected, and listened to.  This also links explicitly to our updated Behaviour Policy 2021.

At DHCPS, all staff understand that our work in safeguarding and protecting children must always have regard for the national guidance issued by the Secretary of State and should be in line with local procedures and guidance from Gateshead’s Safeguarding Children’s Board.

We understand the term ‘safeguarding’ to mean that we will take all reasonable measures to ensure that the risk of harm to children’s welfare is minimised as defined in Working Together to Safeguard Children (DfE). The process of protecting children from maltreatment, preventing impairment of their health or development, and ensuring they are growing up in circumstances consistent with the provision of safe and effective care and taking action to enable all children to have the best outcomes.

We also understand that, where we have any concerns about a child’s welfare, we will take all appropriate action to address those concerns by working in full partnership with other agencies.

Here at Dunston Hill Community Primary School we have a highly-trained and established Lead Safeguarding Team in addition to having a full training programme for all our employees. Please find below details of key members of staff in relation to safeguarding at DHCPS.

Who to report a concern to?

The School Governor Lead for Child Protection

Online Safety

There are four key elements to our School Safeguarding Policy (please see our policys page) identifies 4 key elements in how we keep our children safe:

PREVENTION: through the teaching and pastoral support offered to pupils and the creation and maintenance of a whole-school protective ethos and safe environment.
PROCEDURES: for identifying and reporting cases, or suspected cases, of abuse for all staff. This includes any member of staff on site, both teaching and non-teaching, as any may be the first point of disclosure for a child. Concerned parents may also contact the School. Please see previous page for designated persons on both of our sites.
SUPPORT TO PUPILS: who may have needed safeguarding/protection procedures.
PREVENTING UNSUITABLE PEOPLE WORKING WITH CHILDREN: our policy applies to all staff and volunteers working in the School including community education staff and Academy Council members.

Underpinning the work Dunston Hill Community Primary School does and our Safeguarding Policy is a very important document: Keeping Children Safe in Education (DfE) 2021. This document also helps to support our staff in ensuring that all pupils are safe in our care. 

Preventing Radicalisation and Extremism

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 extreme right wing, violent groups and other causes.

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 our pupils from extremist and violent views in the same way we protect them from drugs or gang violence. Importantly, we provide a safe place for pupils to discuss these issues so they better understand how to protect themselves.

Many of the things we already do in school to help our pupils to become positive, happy members of society also contribute to the PREVENT strategy. These include:

• 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 British Values such as democracy which are part of our core values.

Operation Encompass

Operation Encompass is an innovative project in which schools in North Tyneside have participated since June 2016 and is run in partnership with North Tyneside Council and Northumbria Police.

The project aims to support children who are affected by domestic abuse.  Witnessing domestic abuse is very distressing for a child or young person, who often see the abuse, hear it from another room, see a parent’s injuries or distress afterwards or can be physically hurt trying to stop the abuse.  We are committed to working in partnership to safeguard and protect children and are keen to offer the best care and support possible to all our pupils and families.

Being a part of Operation Encompass means that following any domestic abuse incident being reported to the police, the police will contact Children’s Social Care Front Door service who will then communicate relevant and necessary information to nominated school staff.  This will ensure that the school is made aware at the earliest possible opportunity and can subsequently provide support to children in a way that means they feel safe and listened to.

All schools have members of staff, key adults, who have been fully trained in liaising with the police and Children’s Social Care, when required, and will ensure that the necessary support is made available to the child following the disclosure of a domestic abuse incident.

In the meantime, if you would like to speak to someone further about the project or require further information please contact our key adult in school:

Mrs Katy Anglesea Acting Headteacher

You can also find out more information here.

Safer Recruitment

Dunston Hill Community Primary School is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people and expects all staff and volunteers to share in this commitment. We are committed to selecting and retaining employees who will successfully and positively contribute to providing the very best education for our children. It is a statutory requirement that at least one member of the interview panel has completed safer recruitment training which aims to help deter, identify and reject applicants who might be unsuitable to work with children. Two members of our recruitment panel have attended the training:

Carl Sutherland Headteacher
Gillian McTeer Chair of Governors

Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS)

All adults that have unsupervised access to children in childcare provision must be suitable to do so. The Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS),  was created to help prevent unsuitable people from working with vulnerable groups, such as children. Dunston Hill obtains criminal record checks (DBS checks) for all adults working with children including volunteers.

Supporting our Families

All agencies that work with families have a responsibility to work closely together with you to make sure every child and young person has the best possible chance to reach their full potential. Helping children, young people and families is everybody’s business. All agencies that work with children, young people and families are responsible for listening to your concerns and worries and taking the right actions to ensure you and your family get support at an early stage.

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, from the foundation years through to the teenage years. Early help can also prevent further problems arising.

Effective early help relies upon local agencies working together to:

• identify children and families who would benefit from early help;
• undertake an assessment of the need for early help; and
• provide targeted early help services to address the assessed needs of a child and their family which focuses on activity to significantly improve the outcomes for the child.

In order to achieve this a CAF may be suggested.

What is a CAF?

CAF stands for ‘Common Assessment Framework’. The CAF is a way of working out what is going well for a family, what extra support the family many need and how best to provide this support. Agencies that may be involved include: the Family Intervention Team, Health Visitor, School Nurse and a school representative who will meet with the family every 5-6 weeks in a ‘Team around the Family’ (TAF) meeting.