Safeguarding at Somerleyton Primary School

We are committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people and expect all staff and volunteers to share this commitment. Somerleyton Primary School is a safe place for children, where our responsibilities for safeguarding children are taken seriously.

Click here- Somerleyton School Safeguarding Policy

 Should you have Safeguarding concerns around Somerleyton School pupils please contact us and speak to our designated safeguarding officer.

• Our Policies and Agreed Practices for child protection, health and safety, behaviour management, attendance and looked after children all comply with the recommendations for safeguarding children at school. We have a trained designated child protection officer and a designated governor with responsibility for child protection practices at the school. We have policies to manage potential allegations against staff, whistleblowing and the use of physical intervention.

• There is a Strong Anti-bullying Ethos evident throughout the school. We teach our children how to recognise bullying, how to keep themselves safe from bullying behaviour and how to report it. We listen to our children.

• Through our curriculum we teach the children about personal safety, and how to keep themselves safe from harm. Our curriculum includes opportunities to discuss feelings and emotions, and helps our children to think about their own personal safety and their rights as individuals to be kept safe from harm.
• We have Clear Guidance for both pupils, teachers and parents to help children to use the internet (including social media) safely and responsibly.
• Our Staff Recruitment Policies and Practices are rigorous and comply with safe recruitment and selection requirements (Click Here for Safer Recruitment Policy). We always pursue identity checks and qualification checks and we take up and scrutinise written references before confirming employment. We require clearance form the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) before employing any staff, in addition to pursuing ISA List checks, this includes supply teachers, agency staff, and outside club and coaching staff
• Voluntary Helpers are required to read the Volunteering Policy and sign the volunteering agreement within the policy.
• The local Governing Body is regularly updated about child protection, bullying and safeguarding policies and practices by the Headteacher and Local Authority training.
• It is the Responsibility of Every Adult in this school to ensure that we maintain the highest level of awareness about possible unsafe practices and deal with any issues immediately and appropriately.

Out-of-hours Safeguarding

• Should you have a concern about a child during the school holidays or when the school is closed; such as during the weekend, please telephone 07533739332. If no-one is available to take your call , please leave your name and number and one of the Safeguarding Leads will get back to you. 
• If you have an immediate concern and feel like a child is at risk of significant harm or danger please contact the police.
• You can also report any concerns involving children or young people to the Suffolk Safeguarding Partnership: Concerned? » Suffolk Safeguarding Partnership (suffolksp.org.uk) 

Helpful resources for parents

The government has launched a campaign called 'Together we can tackle child abuse'. The resources, aimed at everyone in the community, include four very short videos explaining physical abuse, emotional abuse, sexual abuse, neglect and online abuse. 
The simple mnemonic, ABC, is used to remind people that they should look out for changes in appearance, behaviour or communication. The webpage has a search engine to find out where to report abuse.
For more information, google ‘together we can tackle child abuse'.

Other useful websites:

The NSPCC website has lots of advice around the following safeguarding areas: self harm, online safety, talking about drugs and alcohol, talking about difficult topics, talking PANTS with your child and dealing with divorce and separation, click here. 

Pantosaurus -  click here

Red cross wellbeing support, click here

PREVENT Strategy

As part of Somerleyton Primary's commitment to safeguarding and child protection we fully support the government's Prevent Strategy, and take guidance from Teaching Approaches to help build resilience to extremism.

What is the Prevent Strategy?

The Prevent strategy is a government strategy designed to stop people becoming terrorists or supporting terrorism. It:

• responds to the ideological challenge we face from terrorism and aspects of extremism, and the threat we face from those who promote these views
• provides practical help to prevent people from being drawn into terrorism and ensure they are given appropriate advice and support
• works with a wide range of sectors (including education, criminal justice, faith, charities, online and health)

Please click here for a link to the official government document.

What are we doing at Somerleyton Primary School to promote PREVENT?

 We are:

• teaching our children to respect one another, being courteous, good mannered and taking pride in our school through our Core Values.
• ensuring all of our teaching, support staff and Governors participate in annual training, ensuring in-depth understanding of PREVENT and an increased awareness.
• pro-actively educating our children on what constitutes bullying and harassment, discrimination  and use of derogatory language through workshops, lessons (PHSE) and holding open discussion forums facilitated by internal staff and external providers.
• through our curriculum, promoting the spiritual, moral, cultural, mental and physical development of pupils at the school and of society.
• through sharing of our up-to-date policies e.g. Safeguarding, Bullying and harassment, Equality and Diversity

  Families Matter - extremism