Oaklands Primary Academy

Oaklands Commitment to Safeguarding Children

This page is designed to be a source of information about safeguarding for the community, parents and students alike – to help inform and educate everyone in our school community.  Every person connected with the academy has a personal responsibility for the highest standards of safeguarding of our pupils. It doesn’t matter how you are connected to the academy, as part of our community we all have a responsibility for safeguarding our pupils. At Oaklands Primary Academy, we are committed to the safeguarding and well-being of every child in our school.  Every member of staff, and our volunteers share this commitment, and adhere to, and ensure compliance with our safeguarding policies (including the prevention of extremism and the whistleblowing policy). We recognise that children are capable of abusing their peers. Abuse will never be tolerated or passed off as “banter”, “just having a laugh” or “part of growing up”. We also recognise the gendered nature of peer-on-peer abuse. However, all peer-on-peer abuse is unacceptable and will be taken seriously.
Most cases of pupils hurting other pupils will be dealt with under our school’s behaviour policy, but our child protection and safeguarding policy will apply to any allegations that raise safeguarding concerns. This might include where the alleged behaviour:

• Is serious, and potentially a criminal offence
• Could put pupils in the school at risk
• Is violent
• Involves pupils being forced to use drugs or alcohol
• Involves sexual exploitation, sexual abuse or sexual harassment, such as indecent exposure, sexual assault, up skirting or sexually inappropriate pictures or videos (including sexting)

All the above will be recorded on the academy's safeguarding log and followed up as is appropriate by the DSL/DDSL.  In addition to this we will minimise the risk of peer-on-peer abuse by:

• Challenging any form of derogatory or sexualised language or behaviour, including requesting or sending sexual images
• Being vigilant to issues that particularly affect different genders – for example, sexualised or aggressive touching or grabbing towards female pupils, and initiation or hazing type violence with respect to boys
• Ensuring our curriculum helps to educate pupils about appropriate behaviour and consent
• Ensuring pupils know they can talk to staff confidentially by making sure that class teachers are always there for those 1-2-1 chats, but that teachers can refer to the Behaviour and Learning Manager for further pastoral support using the referral system
• Ensuring staff are trained to understand that a pupil harming a peer could be a sign that the child is being abused themselves, and that this would fall under the scope of our child protection and safeguarding policy.

Here at Oaklands where is age appropriate, pupils are taught about the issues surrounding sexting as part of our PSHE education and computing programmes such as e safety study and focus drop down menus. Teaching covers the following in relation to sexting/the sharing of inapporpriate images of self::

• What it is
• How it is most likely to be encountered
• The consequences of requesting, forwarding or providing such images, including when it is and is not abusive
• Issues of legality
• The risk of damage to people’s feelings and reputation
• Pupils also learn the strategies and skills needed to manage:
• Specific requests or pressure to provide (or forward) such images
• The receipt of such images
• Where is age appropriate, our policies are also shared with pupils so they are aware of the processes the school will follow in the event of an incident.

Summary for Parents and Carers

Safeguarding is about protecting children, young people and adults at risk from harm, abuse or neglect.  It also means helping children to grow up into confident, healthy and happy adults. Click here to access DigiSafe (LGfL) where there are top tips on PARENTSAFE - Keeping your children safe: online and beyond. There is further guidance from the Internet Watch Foundation to raise awareness of how 11-13 years old girls are most at risk of being tricked into taking nude images in their own bedrooms, click here for the new Home Truths video and for future information on tips on talking to your child, click here for the TALK campaign.

Most children enjoy generally happy childhood experiences within their own family.  Unfortunately for some, this is not the case.  During difficult family times, everyone who knows the child must do the best they can to protect them from future harm. Click here for Childnet's I want to Tell You video on what children might want to tell you but don't know how.

You could be neighbour, friend, relative, childminder, teacher or doctor, or working for any organisation which has contact with children and young people.  Protecting children is everyone's responsibility.  If you are worried about a child, please contact the Bromley MASH Team (Multi-Agency Safeguarding Hub).

Who is responsible for Safeguarding at Oaklands Primary Academy?

We have particular members of staff who are designated as Safeguarding Leads:

Designated Safeguarding Lead: Miss Rebecca Sharp, Head teacher

Safeguarding Governor: Mrs Linda Saunders

Bromley Local Authority also have key safeguarding personnel:

Multi-Agency Safeguarding Hub (MASH)

Tel: 020 8461 7379/7026/7373/7309/7014/7329/7428

Email: mash@bromley.gov.uk

Bromley Out of Hours Service (EDT) for emergencies only:

Tel: 0300 303 8761 (between 5.00pm and 8.30am Monday to Sunday)

Local Authority Designated Officer (LADO):

Tel: 020 8461 7669 or 020 8313 4325

Email: lado@bromley.gov.uk

Click here to download our E-Safety and Acceptable Use Agreement

Please visit our Policies Page for more information on school policies.

Where there is a concern, the DSL will consider the level of risk and decide which agency to make a referral to. This could include Channel, the government’s programme for identifying and supporting individuals at risk of being drawn into terrorism, or the local authority children’s social care team.
You can email counter.extremism@education.gov.uk. Note that this is not for use in emergency situations.
In an emergency, call 999 or the confidential anti-terrorist hotline on 0800 789 321 if you:

• Think someone is in immediate danger
• Think someone may be planning to travel to join an extremist group
• See or hear something that may be terrorist-related

Visitor Information:

Please read and adhere to our Safeguarding Visitor Leaflet which is an expectation before entering the academy.

We work closely with LGfL who have made a range of fantastic resources and guidance available to all within our academy community:

1.  The LGfL  one-stop ParentSafe website offers parents/carers support and advice including:
2. Childnet’s I want to tell you video on what children might want to tell you but don’t know how.
3. The new Home Truths video from the Internet Watch Foundation to raise awareness of how 11-13 year old girls are most at risk of being tricked into taking nude images in their own bedrooms, and their TALK campaign for tips on talking to your child.
4. Find these and other tips on topics from bullying and sharing online content to pornography at ParentSafe – and don’t forget to share the link via your parent newsletters, website and communications.
5. Reporting and disclosures:
   • LGfL have also created a pupil audit to encourage pupil disclosures and staff poster to facilitate referrals at safeposters.lgfl.net
   • Dedicated NSPCC helpline 0800 136 663 providing support 
     • Find these and other reporting channels at reporting.lgfl.net
     • Report Remove tool to self-refer nude images or videos that have been shared online

Educate Against Hate Website

Childline