Safeguarding

Valley Primary School children are encouraged to live healthy lifestyles and adopt safe practices. Our safeguarding policies and practices help to ensure that they are safe, happy and healthy.

School policies are in place to ensure that there is a consistent approach to practices throughout the school and that they are followed by Staff, Governors and Volunteers.

Adults have a tremendous impact on young children and with this in mind adults at Valley Primary School:

• are good role models for children
• enjoy their work and working with children
• are conscientious and hard-working
• recognise and value strengths in each other and use these to support everyone
• work within agreed policies of the school
• promote a happy, caring and safe school
• encourage children to think for themselves, ask questions and find answers
• create an environment of trust whereby children are trusted to work seriously
• challenge and support children in their learning.

Child protection

This is a sensitive area in which all staff receive regular training. We work with other services for children and families to support the needs of our children. There is also a named governor for Safeguarding which includes Child Protection.

Child Abuse

Abuse can happen to a child of any age and social background, at home or in the community. It happens when someone hurts a child directly - physically, emotionally or sexually - or indirectly, through neglect or failing to prevent harm.

Usually the abuser is someone known to the child - maybe an adult, sometimes another child, and sometimes more than one person. Abuse can be stopped and even prevented, but this can only happen if someone knows about it.

If you have a safeguarding concern…

Safeguarding is everybody’s responsibility.

If you are worried about a child being a victim of neglect, abuse or cruelty, you must tell Miss Milewski or in her absence Mrs Wilton or Mrs Wood.

Alternatively, if you prefer you can telephone MASH (Multi Agency Safeguarding Hub) on 0121 788 4300 during office hours or 0121 605 6060 outside office hours in an emergency or if you feel a child is in immediate danger call the police on 999. 

You can also call the NSPCC on 0808 800 5000 or contact ChildLine on 0800 1111 for further advice or support.

Further Information relating to Safeguarding...

Attendance

Children’s attendance at school is monitored on a daily basis and notable absences or patterns of absences are followed up. It is crucial that children attend school every day and Valley Primary School has a strict policy on unauthorised absence and requests for extended holiday.

Behaviour

High standards of behaviour are expected in our school. Our behaviour policy can be viewed in our policies section and sets out how we promote good behaviour and deal with any problems. Valley children are often reminded about school rules and they know that we have them in order for everyone to be happy and keep safe.

Health and Safety

Everyone at Valley Primary School knows they have a responsibility to ensure children and adults are able to work in a healthy and safe environment. We complete risk assessments regularly to ensure our premises are safe and we have several first aiders who deal with any illnesses and accidents should they occur.

Curriculum

Through the planned curriculum, we ensure that the issues of healthy eating, physical exercise and safety are taught. This aspect is enhanced by themed events and many visitors to school e.g. Police Officers and Road Safety Officers who talk to the children about key issues.

E-safety

All of our staff and children are aware of the best practice around E Safety and we regularly draw attention to existing local and national guidance on this subject so that we can maintain the safest possible learning and working environments for children and staff alike. We encourage parents to also ensure this is practised within the home. 

Acceptable use of Technology

At Valley Primary we believe technology helps prepare children for their future world. We use technology throughout the curriculum in order to provide children with additional opportunities which enhance their learning. Technology is only ever used for this benefit and never for any other reasons.

Safer recruitment and selection

This aspect is taken very seriously. Valley Primary School ensures that all staff new to the school and volunteers who work in school on a regular basis have the appropriate checks prior to taking up post e.g. a DBS check. At all staff appointments at least one of the appointment panel is Safer Recruitment Trained.

Complaints

If parents have any complaints, senior leaders will listen to the concerns and will follow up any issues. The school is committed to working closely with parents / carers for the benefit of the children. For details of our complaints policy, please visit our Key Information section. 

We actively teach our children how to keep themselves safe…

Safeguarding is integrated throughout our school. We offer many regular opportunities across the curriculum and through both whole school and class assemblies for our children to discuss what it means to keep themselves safe. We also enjoy specific enrichment opportunities which focus on this such as our recent Safety Week. 
 

As part of Safety Week, we embraced the ‘Speak Out, Stay Safe’ activities from the NSPCC. This began with a virtual assembly from the NSPCC about how children can keep themselves safe. We followed up with a variety of activities across the school including learning what Childline is and how to contact them. We made chatterboxes or lollipop reminders with information about this service on. We also thought about which adults in our lives we could go to if we were worried about anything, and considered what makes us feel safe and happy and which activities would be unsafe and are ones which we should seek help if we are asked to participate in. We considered safe spaces and where we could go if we needed some time out or thinking time for any reason and talked about different ways of letting an adult know we need help when talking is a little difficult.
 

The key message, which we reiterate regularly with our children; if for any reason you don’t feel safe or are worried about something, there are many people who you can talk to, so please do ask for help.