The school’s Safeguarding officers are: Mr Joe O’Connor and Ms Claire Queen
Keeping children safe and happy is at the heart of everything we do at St Mary’s Catholic Primary School. We recognize that all staff, including volunteers, have a full and active part to play in protecting our pupils from harm. We believe that our school should provide a caring, positive safe and stimulating environment, which promotes the social, physical and moral development of every child and therefore we take safeguarding extremely seriously whilst retaining a balanced and human approach.
We have excellent recruitment procedures – every member of staff has full checks and up to date references, as do visiting artists, regular volunteers, supply teachers and governors – and all staff receive appropriate training at regular intervals. We have policies and practices that focus on ensuring the health and well-being of the children, for example: risk assessments before every class trip, a regularly updated health and safety policy and staff presence at the school entrance at the start and end of every day.
We have well-established ways of monitoring and responding to incidents of concern, for example: unexplained absences, difficult behaviour and significant changes in physical or emotional appearance.
Nothing is more important to us than the safety and welfare of our pupils. We take rigorous steps to ensure that children stay safe and do not come to any harm. We work closely with parents/carers and a range of professional agencies in order to secure this. Useful links for parents/carers: https://www.webwise.ie/category/parents/advice/
Prevent is part of the Government’s strategy to address terrorism. The main aim of Prevent is to stop people becoming terrorists or supporting terrorism. Prevent focuses on all forms of terrorist threats. The Government’s Prevent strategy can be found at the following address: www.homeoffice.gov.uk
How can you help?
It is important that we all work together, so that we can protect our communities. There are many ways you can help:
- Get in touch with your local neighbourhood or Prevent team for advice and support, if you are worried about someone you know who you believe may be vulnerable to radicalisation;
- You can speak to your local officers about helping run community events to bring people from different communities together;
St Mary’s Prevent Strategy
All school are required by law to teach a broad and balanced curriculum which promotes the spiritual, moral and cultural development of children and prepares them for the opportunities, responsibilities and experiences of life.
We aim to protect children from harm and to ensure that they are taught in a way that is consistent with the law and British Values. To this end, it acts to:
- Raise Awareness
- Provide information
- Enable learners to make a positive contribution
- Safeguarding young people
At St Mary’s, pupils participate in a curriculum that promotes active learning and questioning enables the pupils to explore social and emotional aspects of learning throughout the curriculum.
We celebrate our own uniqueness and challenge prejudice of any kind.
We are working in partnership with our Family of Catholic schools to further improve our work through SMSC.
Extremism
Something which is clearly not part of any British or European value is extremism. It is important to remember that whilst the threat from so-called Islamic State has been a focus in the Counter Terrorism and Security Act, the Prevent Duty is clear that extremism of all kinds should be tackled too. In England, far right groups such as Britain First and the English Defense League need to be tackled, too. Extremism is not a new topic in education, but schools have a relatively new statutory duty to pay “due regard to the need to prevent people from being drawn into terrorism”.
Read the government’s Prevent duty guidance and its guidance for schools.
How can families help with keeping children safe?
- Make sure all addresses and contact numbers are up to date;
- If someone different is picking your child up, please let us know;
- Be at school on time every day;
- Notify the school about your child’s absence – unexplained absences are a key trigger for concern
