Safeguarding
Benton Dene Primary is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and expects everyone involved with the school to share this commitment. Safeguarding is everybody’s responsibility.
As a school we have a legal duty to safeguard your child’s welfare. All members of staff are regularly trained in safeguarding children and have a duty to ensure their safety; robust record keeping ensures that all staff training is up to date. If the school is worried that a child is at risk of harm, we must legally look into the matter. We do this by following the Department of Education’s statutory guidance for schools and colleges called ‘Keeping Children Safe in Education’ and the Local Safeguarding Children Board’s child protection procedures.
Safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children is defined as;
- protecting children from maltreatment
- preventing impairment of children's mental and physical health or development
- ensuring that children grow up in circumstances consistent with the provision of safe and effective care; and
- taking action to enable all children to have the best outcomes (DFE: Keeping Children Safe in Education 2023)
Maltreatment includes abuse or neglect by inflicting harm or failing to prevent harm. Abuse can take place wholly online or technology may be utilised to facilitate abuse offline. Children may be abused by an adult or adults or by another child or children.
Our staff are vigilant and knowledgeable about the children in their care; they are aware of how to keep our children safe and what signs of abuse or neglect to look out for and the importance of reporting any concerns to the Designated Safeguarding Lead or Deputy Designated Safeguarding Leads. Every school must have a Designated Safeguarding Lead to support staff to carry out their safeguarding duties and to liaise closely with other services such as children’s social care.
At Benton Dene our Designated Safeguarding Lead is Gillian Reiling. Our Deputy Designated Safeguarding Leads are Ashleigh Lawrence, Andrew McMurchie and Marc Jarvis. Janet Hunter is our Chair of Governors and Adrienne Richmond is our Safeguarding Governor.
Please see the photos below to help you identify our DSL/DDSLs.
The attached Safeguarding and Child Protection Policy contains further information about the nature of maltreatment and how any concerns about children are dealt with.
Our pupils are encouraged to share any concerns that they may have and know that these will be taken seriously. We take action as appropriate to enable all children to have the best outcomes.
Safeguarding means so much more than being ‘compliant’ with published expectations. At Benton Dene Primary, we put the children’s happiness and their interests at the heart of all we do. Our safeguarding culture is underpinned through our ethos; challenged, successful, supported and valued. Our children come from a wide variety of backgrounds, experiences and starting points. We seek to create a ‘level playing field’ for them to develop personal skills in a safe, secure and nurturing environment. 100% of our parent survey responses and pupil feedback confirms that our children feel happy and safe.
We carefully check that all staff and volunteers are safe to work with our children. All necessary checks are made including DBS checks, references, ID, online searches and employment history. We keep a single central record of all this information and this is regularly monitored. Visitors and volunteers are rigorously checked in much the same way staff are before they can have any unsupervised access to our children. Any contractors on site have to read a safety leaflet before being signed into the building. All adults in school wear an ID badge with a coloured lanyard for quick identification.
Click here to read our Safeguarding and Child Protection Policy
Safeguarding and the Curriculum
Safeguarding forms and important part of our curriculum offer for our children. PHSE lessons address a number of ways for children to keep themselves safe including personal saftey, keeping healthy, relationships, rights and responsibilites.
Details of how safeguarding is taught are set out in the following documents.
Safeguarding procedures for all visitors including parents
We are looking forward to you visiting our school. All visitors are required to read our safeguarding leaflet on entering, a copy of this document is below.
Safeguarding – IMPORTANT
We have reviewed our safeguarding policies in relation to parents/carers coming into the main reception area and in line with current advice we request that parents and carers report to the first reception window only and not to proceed to the main reception unless authorised to do so. If parents/carers have a pre-arranged meeting with staff, they will be allowed access to the main foyer. We are trying to reduce large number of parents from using the main foyer as a waiting area and therefore compromising children’s safety. Thank you for your support.
If you have any safeguarding concerns and wish to talk to someone, please come into school to talk to any of our Designated Safeguarding Leads listed above or telephone them on 0191 4661818 or via email office@bentondeneprimary.co.uk
Key information about safeguarding at BDP:
Child Protection
As a school, we follow our safeguarding and child protection policy (link above) in order to follow our statutory duties. All staff must report any concerns they have about a child and not see these as insignificant. Staff will not assume a colleague or another professional will take action and share the concern. On occasions, a referral to Children’s Social Care is justified by a single incident such as an injury or disclosure of abuse. More often however, concerns accumulate over a period of time and are evidenced by building up a picture over time; this is particularly true in cases of emotional abuse and neglect. In these circumstances, staff record and pass on concerns in accordance with this policy to allow the Designated Safeguarding Lead to build up a
picture and access support for the child at the earliest opportunity.
All concerns, discussions and decisions made, and the reasons for those decisions will be recorded in writing on the school’s CPOMS system (this is an online system to monitor safeguarding, well-being and pastoral issues.)
Early Help
Early help is organised early intervention to provide support as soon as a problem emerges at any point in a child’s life. If early help is appropriate, our DSLs will generally lead on liaising with other agencies including Early Help staff and setting up an inter-agency assessment, as appropriate. Staff may be required to support other agencies and professionals in an early help assessment and, in some cases, where education is the fundamental factor, act as the lead practitioner. Early help assessments will be kept under review and referred to Children’s Social Care for assessment if the child’s situation does not appear to be improving or is getting worse.
Attendance
Please support us by ensuring that your child attends school regularly – this is a parents’ legal responsibility. Failing to attend school on a regular basis will be considered as a safeguarding matter. Any absence affects the pattern of a child’s schooling and regular absence will seriously affect their learning. Any pupil’s absence disrupts teaching routines so may also affect the learning of others in the same class.
Curriculum
At Benton Dene Primary, we have a calm, secure and encouraging environment where children feel safe and their holistic development is enhanced through the delivery of our whole school curriculum, including our PSHE/RSE curriculum, curriculum drivers, work with external agencies, and other communities. We have identified opportunities across all curriculum subjects to directly teach the children about keeping safe/and safeguarding. Please see the curriculum section for further information.
E-Safety
We actively promote and monitor e-safety. We have regular e-safety audits and this supports our comprehensive policy. All pupils, staff and visitors to school must read and sign our Acceptable Use Policy before any access to our systems is allowed. All usage is monitored by specialist software and this is backed up by a robust firewall and web filtering. Pupils are taught how to stay safe online and this is regularly reinforced in computing lessons and what to do or who they can talk to if they are worried.
Health and Safety
We work hard to ensure that our site is as safe as possible. Staff closely supervise the children in all areas of the school and they are visible and available to talk to at all times. The grounds are checked by the caretaker every day and the building is maintained to the highest standards. External experts come regularly to ensure everything is fully functioning and safe – fire safety, water, electrics, etc. The premises are accessible to pupils, parents and staff with disabilities. We carry out regular fire alarm and evacuation tests and all of this is recorded in our Fire Log. An annual Fire Audit and risk assessments reviews are carried out regularly.
Operation Encompass
Operation Encompass aims to safeguard and support children and young people who have been involved in a domestic abuse incident. As an Operation Encompass school, we will be alerted of any incident the following day. Following an incident at home, children can arrive at school distressed, upset and unprepared for the day. North Tyneside Council, the police and nominated key adults in school will be working together to make sure that school staff are made aware of an incident early enough to support pupils in school.
Benton Dene Primary School Operation Encompass letter for parents/carers
More information can be found here: http://www.operationencompass.org/
Prevent
PREVENT is part of the Government’s counter terrorism strategy CONTEST, it aims to stop people becoming terrorists or supporting terrorism. All staff have been trained in PREVENT as vulnerable young people can be susceptible to radicalisation and recruitment into terrorist organisations. As a school we have a duty under the Counter Terrorism and Security Act 2015 (Section 26), to prevent children and young people from being drawn into terrorism.
British Values are embedded throughout our curriculum from EYFS to KS2; these values are;
- Democracy
- Rule of law
- Individual liberty
- Mutual respect and tolerance for those with different faiths
British Values were introduced to help keep children safe, promote their welfare and counter extremism. Further information about British Values can be found in the Learning and Achievement section of our website.
More information can be found here: https://www.northtynesidescp.org.uk/prevent-counter-terrorism/
and also
https://educateagainsthate.com/
Child on Child Abuse
At Benton Dene School we have a zero tolerance approach to child on child abuse. All staff have been trained on recognising the signs and indicators of child on child abuse, and this type of abuse will never be accepted or dismissed as ‘children being children’. Peer on peer abuse includes, but is not limited to:
physical and sexual abuse
sexual harassment and violence
emotional harm
on and offline bullying
teenage relationship abuse
grooming children for sexual and criminal exploitation
For more information please visit the following
website: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/keeping-children-safe-in-education--2
Sexual Harassment
Sexual Harassment refers to any ‘unwanted conduct of a sexual nature’ and can occur online or offline, inside and outside of the school context. At Benton Dene Primary we have a zero tolerance policy on sexual harassment. All staff have received update training and our safeguarding policy directly responds to the Keeping Children Safe in Education guidance around sexual harassment.
County Lines
County lines is a form of criminal exploitation where urban gangs persuade, coerce or force children and young people to store drugs and money and/or transport them to suburban areas, market towns and coastal towns (Home Office, 2018). It can happen in any part of the UK and is against the law and a form of child abuse. All staff at Benton Dene Primary have been trained in spotting the signs and indicators of this.
For more information about what county lines is, please visit the following
website: https://learning.nspcc.org.uk/child-abuse-and-neglect/county-lines
The following websites may also provide safeguarding information that may be of interest to you:
Harbour
Harbour works with families and individuals who are affected by abuse from a partner, former partner or other family member.
If you or someone you know is being abused or being abusive to others then use our website to learn about the help which is available.
Acorns Project
We offer a range of services to support families affected by domestic abuse in North Tyneside and Northumberland.
https://www.acornsproject.org.uk/
Keeping Children Safe in Education:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/keeping-children-safe-in-education--2
Northumbria Police Prevention through Education Team
"Our goal is to help keep young people safe and prevent them from becoming victims and perpetrators of crime by delivering tailored, interactive learning sessions whilst also building a positive relationship with police."
https://beta.northumbria.police.uk/advice-and-info/parents-and-kids/education/
Quality Care Commission
Safeguarding people - Care Quality Commission
Gov.uk - Safeguarding Children
Schools, colleges and children's services : Safeguarding children - detailed information - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
NSPCC
What is Child Abuse & How to Keep Your Child Protected | NSPCC
Safeguarding children and child protection | NSPCC Learning
Online safety
Keeping children safe online | NSPCC
Young Minds
YoungMinds | Mental Health Charity For Children And Young People | YoungMinds
CBBC Stay Safe
Own It - A place to help you boss your life online - Own It - BBC
ThinkUKnow
CEOP Education (thinkuknow.co.uk)
Childnet
Parents & carers | Childnet
