What is Safeguarding?

Safeguarding is the action that is taken to promote the welfare of children and protect them from harm. The Government has defined the term Safeguarding children as

'The process of protecting children from abuse or neglect, preventing impairment of their health and development, and ensuring they are growing up in circumstances consistent with the provision of safe and effective care that enables children to have optimum life chances and enter adulthood successfully.'

At Oaklands, we are committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of all our children.

We ensure this happens through:

• Establishing, implementing and following good safeguarding policies and procedures including safe recruitment
• Ensuring all staff and volunteers are aware of, understand and follow the school’s safeguarding policies and procedures
• Ensuring that all staff and volunteers receive child protection training

Anyone working with the children at Oaklands is advised to maintain an attitude of ‘it could happen here’ where safeguarding is concerned. When concerned about the welfare of a child, we will always act in the interests of the child.

There are many aspects of Safeguarding;

Keeping Children Safe In Education 

This is statutory guidance that all adults working in schools and colleges in England must have regard to when carrying out their duties to safeguard and promote the welfare of children. Schools are asked to ensure that all staff read at least Part one of the guidance.

The London Grid for Learning (LGfL) have translated KCSIE 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 

• Cantonese 

• Gujarati 

• Mandarin 

• Polish 

• Portuguese 

• Punjabi 

• Spanish 

• Urdu 

• Somali 

The translated documents can be found here: The National Grid for Learning - KCSIE Translate (lgfl.net)

Leicester Children's Safeguarding Partnership Board

Our school procedures for safeguarding children are in line with the Leicester City Safeguarding Children’s Partnership Board (LSCPB), Multi Agency Child Protection/Safeguarding Procedures

https://llrscb.proceduresonline.com/index.htm 

The Partnership is led by the Safeguarding Partners as defined in Working Together 2018.

Locally these are:

• Leicester City Council

• Leicestershire Police

• West Leicestershire Clinical Commissioning Group

• East Leicestershire and Rutland Clinical Commissioning Group 

Operation Encompass

All Leicester Schools are part of Operation Encompass, a safeguarding initiative with the aim to improve outcomes for children and families affected by domestic violence and abuse.

This scheme is designed to provide early reporting to schools of any domestic abuse incidents that might have an impact on a child that attends their school. 

All public agencies currently share information where there are safeguarding concerns or risk of harm to children and the Police currently share information on all incidents of domestic abuse in Leicester with Leicester City Council.

Our Designated Safeguarding Lead (Headteacher) will be informed when any domestic abuse incident has been reported to the police and one of our pupils was in the household. It will not give any details about the incident. We know that domestic abuse in a household can have a big impact on children, even if they do not see what is happening. The information will be used to ensure that the school is able to provide appropriate support to the pupil. The information will remain confidential and only shared on a strictly need-to-know basis, for example with the class teacher. 

We have been advised by the Police not to contact families following an incident, however, if you wish to speak to the school about it, please do call and ask to speak to a member of the senior leadership team or our Family Support Worker.

If you would like to speak to someone in confidence about domestic abuse, call the Leicester, Leicestershire& Rutland Domestic Abuse Helpline on 0800 802 0028 or visit https://www.leicester.gov.uk/your-community/emergencies-safety-and-crime/domestic-and-sexual-abuse/

We strive to offer the best support possible for our pupils and Operation Encompass provides an effective way of the school being able to support a child at what may be a very difficult time.