Safeguarding
Safeguarding at St Joseph's
Designated Safeguarding Lead: Liz Rippon
Deputy Designated Safeguarding Leads: Gerry Curran and Rebecca Crook
Pastoral Team: Sam James and Rebecca Crook
Online Safety Champion: Deputy Headteacher Gerry Curran
Anti-bullying Champion: Annemarie Lithgow
At Joseph’s we recognise the importance of all our children feeling safe as we recognise this as a condition of being ready to learn. Safeguarding at St Joseph’s Catholic Primary School is given top priority. All adults in our school have a responsibility for Safeguarding. We believe that it is important to make children aware of behaviour towards them that is not acceptable, and our PSHE, Rainbow curriculum supports children in recognising when their personal rights are being compromised.
Keeping Children Safe in Education
Please read the latest DfE guidelines on Keeping Children Safe in Education.
We work hard at St Joseph’s to ensure our children are safe when with us, and also teach them how to keep safe themselves – both in and outside of school.
Early Help
Please see BCP's Family Information Directory which has information about BCP's Early Help Teams:
Find the information here: Family Information Directory
Operation Encompass and domestic abuse
Operation Encompass directly connects the police with schools to ensure support for children living with domestic abuse in their homes. Operation Encompass is a charitable organisation set up in 2011, which has since enabled effective interventions to many thousands of children who've experienced domestic abuse. Their aim is to provide an efficient, confidential channel of communication between police forces and safeguarding leads within schools. This enables the immediate and discrete recognition of the child's situation by the school, ensuring a secure and sympathetic environment is provided and the broader effects of abuse are addressed.
For more information please visit the Operation Encompass website: www.operationencompass.org
Please see the pdf document below: 'Working to break the cycle of Domestic Abuse'
Protecting children from domestic abuse
Domestic abuse is any type of controlling, coercive, threatening behaviour, violence or abuse between people who are, or who have been in a relationship. It can include physical, sexual, psychological, emotional or financial abuse. Children never just ‘witness’ domestic abuse; it always has an impact on them.
Please visit the NSPCC website for additional advice on identifying children who are affected by domestic abuse and how they can be helped is available. www.nspcc.org.uk
Local domestic abuse services:
National Domestic Violence Helpline: 0808 2000247
Poole Domestic Abuse Outreach: 01202 710777.
Prevent
Government advice and trusted resources for schools to safeguard students from radicalisation, build resilience to all types of extremism and promote shared values. www.educateagainsthate.com
Prevent Radicalisation and Extremism by Acting Early. www.actearly.uk
Criminal Exploitation
Advice about how to spot the signs of criminal exploitation and involvement in gangs and what support is available for children and young people. www.nspcc.org.uk
Child Sexual Explotation
Child sexual exploitation (CSE) is a form of child abuse and is illegal. Please see further information and advice from Dorset Police on protection children against child sexual exploitation. www.dorset.police.uk
Harmful sexual abuse
Local procedures for safeguarding children against harmful sexual behaviour: Pan-Dorset Safeguarding Children Partnership
Drugs and Alcohol
EDAS provides support to adults and young people affected by alcohol, illicit substances and over the counter or prescribed medication misuse across Dorset. www.edasuk.org
Anti-bullying
The Anti bullying Alliance provides a lot of advice for parents and young people.
Incidents of bullying are taken seriously at St Joseph’s. Children have been taught to identify bullying behaviour and are encouraged to report it. A great emphasis is put on developing the skills of being a good friend.
As pupils mature they are able to reflect on their own and others’ rights and responsibilities. Pupils are taught to behave in this way and are involved in drawing up codes of Conduct in their classes.
Childline
The school signposts access to support for pupils, by displaying Childline posters with helpline numbers.
At St Joseph’s we have a cycle of safeguarding assemblies that include:
Road Safety
Water Safety
E-Safety
Child Protection
The senior leadership team run fortnightly assemblies to celebrate achievement.
This provides an opportunity to reinforce St Joseph’s Golden Rules:
Everyone has a right to learn
Everyone has a right to be respected
Everyone has a right to feel safe
They are also reminded of how to ‘Keep safe and keep happy’
Useful websites for information on rail/road and water safety:
Rail safety: www.networkrail.co.uk
Road safety: www.dorsetroadsafe.org.uk
Water safety: www.rnli.org
We use these slogans to make it easy to remember:
Tell any adult in the school
Use the Worry Boxes
Talk to our ELSAs (Emotional Literacy Support Assistants)
We have a ’Play Buddy’ scheme in action at playtimes where some older children will support children who want help with finding a friend to play with. The friendship bench is a central point for children to come to and is seen as a friendly place to sit.
In Year 2 children are taken to Safewise where they experience full sized mock-up scenarios that teach them how to keep themselves and others safe, for example by the river, at home, or at the scene of road accident or a house fire.
E-Safety training
We use the ‘Safe Schools Team’ from Dorset Police to run e-safety workshops with each class every year. In this way children are reminded of the ‘Zip it, flag it, block it’ slogan that is displayed in school at all times. These workshops extend to parents too in order to encourage our whole-school community to protect themselves. The school’s E-Safety Champion carries out an annual 360 degree audit – this shows our current rating is above average compared to the 10,395 schools using this audit.
We also use the ‘Safe Schools Team’ to deliver an annual workshop on preventing bullying. Please see the latest newsletter from the Safer Schools and Communities Team at the bottom of the page.
External agencies
At St Joseph’s we will signpost parents to outside agencies whenever it seems useful. We have links to the Somerford Children’s Centre who offer parenting courses and many other helpful family provision.
Useful websites:
The Department for Education website - Keeping Children Safe in Education
Thinkuknow - For information on how to keep your child safe on the internet
SWGFL - Top E-safety Tips to Staying Safe Online Guide
Childnet International - recommended by the Safer Schools and Community Team
Parent Zone - offers some practical advice on how you can stay calm when you’re online
Pan-Dorset Safeguarding Children Partnership - safeguarding children in Dorset
Useful contacts:
BCP Children’s services
First Response
T. 01202 123334 Monday to Thursday: 8.30am to 5.15pm, Friday: 8.30am to 4.45pm or email
Out of hours
T. 01202 738256 or email
The latest contact details for the assessment team are:
Tel: 01202 128885 or email
If you are worried about anything, it could be something big or something small – don’t bottle it up. It can really help if you talk to someone. If there is something on your mind, Childline is here for you.